


second chances

by myriadus



Series: searchlights [2]
Category: The Creatures | Cow Chop RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fake Chop, Heist, M/M, Mutual Pining, Origin Story, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-04-21 07:27:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14279967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myriadus/pseuds/myriadus
Summary: So Geoff Ramsey wants them to rob a high-security casino in downtown Los Santos. Fine, that’s easy. Kill the guy in charge if they can? Also easy. Get a crew together? Aleks knows a handful of good people who can and will get the job done. And if they do it all just right, they get to be under the Kingpin’s protection for however long he wants them. None of that’s the hard part.It’s that Ramsey wants Aleks to team up with Nova. That’s the fucking hard part.





	1. the meeting

**Author's Note:**

> here we are!!! :D part two, and hoo boy it's already giving me a heck of an amount of trouble, but i'm really glad to start getting it out :') as always i'm sure it'll start off a bit slow but it's going to speed up! 
> 
> special huge thanks to [hannah](http://cockbite.tumblr.com) for, as ever, being an amazing soundboard and [robin](http://jamesmarchant.tumblr.com) for dealing w my proud ass and being a fantastic beta!!! ♥
> 
> also, this story will not make a lick of sense if you haven't read [first impressions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13024467/chapters/29789784), whoops :'D 
> 
> thanks for reading, and come hang out at my [tumblr!](http://myriadus.tumblr.com)
> 
> ALSO [hrtbnr](http://hrtbnr.tumblr.com) drew some [FREAKING AWESOME ART](https://hrtbnr.tumblr.com/post/172841135968/did-you-read-myriadus-new-fic-though) of the end scene, so be warned!! click after you read if you don't want to be spoiled!!! :>

Aleks isn’t entirely sure where he is; he just knows that he’s got one gun left, and most of the city is abandoned.

It feels like a shitty fucking apocalypse TV show or something, like he’s been caught in the middle of a bad episode of _The Walking Dead._ Everything’s desolate and bleak and he can’t help but wrinkle his nose as he skulks around a bit, trying to get a good vantage point.

The buildings all around him are gray and crumbling, a delapidated ruin that only serves to set his nerves off. He can’t really see anyone in sight, nothing on his radar, and he’s only got another couple of shots left to pop off. All in all it’s not the best situation he’s ever found himself in, but, well, it’s not the worst either, so he just… takes a deep breath and keeps going forward. He’d really rather not get shot, but he’s got no choice.

The building he’s in is empty. It’s easy enough, taking corners blindly when it’s quiet, so he moves slowly and checks the ground for anything he could swipe. Nothing. Someone must’ve been here before him. Aleks huffs, wishes he could kick at the scattered remains of bricks and mortar around him, and starts off again.

And then abruptly freezes, spine going stock straight as he hears gunshots in the distance, and then he’s leaning forward slowly, trying to figure out where it’s coming from. _God_ , his fucking hands are starting to sweat. He rubs one down his face real quick, pinches his eyes and then the bridge of his nose with index finger and thumb before going back to what he was doing. He has to gather his thoughts, try to figure out what his next move is.

He’s not the best at this. _Fuck_. Okay.

“Fuck,” he hisses, and moves.

There’s a corner that he can see and he presses himself up against the wall, looks around for a long moment as he swallows hard. He probably has one good shot at this, and if he doesn’t nail it then it’s his fucking brains splattered against the wall. He knows there’s three left, and someone out in the distance trying to hunt his ass down and if he loses this firefight, well. No chicken dinner for him, just a fucking corpse ragdolling across the floor.

That’s not a very pleasant thought. He steels himself and peeks around the corner.

Nothing, which isn’t nearly as comforting as he would’ve thought it would be. He takes another long, deep breath and then lets it out again, makes his way towards the exit. The firefight’s still going off in the distance. When he peeks out he can see another building about thirty feet away that he might be able to make it to if the others’ attention is grabbed for long enough.

Another deep breath. He’s only got the one chance. He steels himself, and darts out the door towards the building across.

Instantly, a bullet passes right between his eyes, one good shot from a sniper that sprays blood in a long fan behind him on the wall, and he slumps immediately as the screen goes dark.

_BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!_

“Bitch,” he says immediately, seething, and from next to him Trevor laughs and snatches the controller out of his hands. “Fucking - shit.”

“Dude, you’re so bad at this, what the fuck,” Trevor says, giggling. He’s watching the screen now, but Aleks can still see the smugness on his expression.

Trevor leans back on the couch with the controller in his hands, hair falling into his eyes as he grins and starts up a new game. He’s wearing some stupid Hawaiian shirt again, and Aleks glares at him, and it. The fucking shirt’s a new fixation that Aleks had thought had passed months ago, but it’s starting to rear its head again, and that pisses Aleks off just based on the merit of him already being pissed off over the game.

“I don’t spend all my fucking time playing video games, _Trevor,_ ” Aleks gripes, sinking into the couch and crossing his arms. Their couch is maybe big enough that Aleks considers going full-tantrum and scooching away so that their thighs can’t touch at all even if they both manspread, but he’s also a twenty-five year old grown-ass man and he has a bit of dignity left. Instead he just watches as Trevor makes his way through the same emptied city he was just in, huffing a little as he sinks into the couch cushions.

Celia must see her chance because she jumps up onto the couch and lets out a little trill, walks onto his lap instantly. Her fluffy tail gets in his face immediately and he huffs out, leans away and pushes it out of his face as she walks around in circles across his thighs. She must deem his lap too uncomfortable after that, because she hops down, curls up against where Sonic has pressed herself against Trevor’s thigh in a tiny black ball of purring fuzz.

“I don’t play video games all the time either, _Sasha_ ,” Trevor says, eyes on the screen as he starts looking for a weapon. He sweeps the hair back up off his forehead with a hand, little streaks of blond left that settle into the rest of the brown. “But like, you’re shit at this one. That’s all I’m saying.”

“ _You’re_ shit,” Aleks mumbles, and gets up off the couch while Trevor laughs again. Mishka lifts her head off the loveseat, which she’s commandeered all to herself, but Aleks just rubs at her head a little as he walks by before he makes his way into the kitchen. She pants happily up at him and then settles her head back down, ears flicking.

Their apartment is small, not exactly a burner since they’ve lived there for a good span of time, but it’s still pretty shitty in the long run. Aleks still remembers having to pack everything he owned, shoving seven hundred in cash into some guy’s hand to move in that night before he was dragging Trevor up the steps by his collar, a small bag pressed tight to his chest, too. He looks over at the shitty calendar they have tacked to the wall over the sink, and not for the first time since he woke up this morning, stares at the day.

He can still hear ringing in his ears as he stares at the little number, can feel the phantom buzz of his phone ringing in his pocket, the wailing of sirens in the distance.

_Fuck._

Aleks sighs as he opens the fridge and peeks inside, drumming his fingers against the top of the door. There’s not much, which means they’ll have to go on a grocery run. They’re in-between jobs right now - things a little slow at the moment. Aleks sighs again and starts making a mental note of what they’ll need as he makes his way back into the living room with two beers in hand - but he stops, turns a bit curiously. There’s a helicopter thrumming above their building, and he pokes his head out the open kitchen window briefly to try and get a glance at it.

The part of the city they’re in is nicer than where they used to set up burners, but it’s definitely far from perfect. He sighs, breathes in the crisp air of the fall. It’s going to get cold soon - or, at least, as cold as Los Santos can get. He lets himself just sit there for a minute, arms crossed in the windowsill and beers hanging loosely in each hand, and stares at the buildings around theirs. The helicopter’s still overhead, and it stirs up a bit of a breeze that he basks in for a moment.

Truth is, Aleks is tired. He’s tired, and he’s bored, and he misses the way their lives used to be.

He sighs, rubs hard underneath his own nose before he heads back into the living room again. Trevor’s already made himself a neat little nest in the game by the time that Aleks comes back, scope out as he surveys the scene. He pops off a clean shot, and Aleks watches as the dude slumps over with a gritty hole in his head and the count of enemies goes down by one.

“Jesus,” Aleks says, at the same moment Trevor says triumphantly, “scrub.”

Sonic opens her eyes when Aleks sits back down and sets one of the cans on their coffee table. He watches as she stretches out, paws spread wide before she yawns and then makes her way onto Trevor’s lap instead, much to Celia’s chagrin. Trevor just leans down and kisses Sonic on the flat of her head without his eyes ever leaving the screen, and she bumps up against the underside of his chin before settling down in his lap. It’s cute, and it’s a practiced reaction that settles a bit of Aleks’ anger into something softer. Aleks gave her to Trevor as a present for Christmas, and he’s still glad to see it was a good choice.

He kicks up his legs, holds the can between his thighs as he watches Trevor play.

Two years to the day. Guess it’s a day for reflection, and Aleks plays a bit with his unopened beer, watching the screen. He wouldn’t have considered Trevor to be a good partner when they first met, given that the kid didn’t know what he was doing at the time. He still remembers sad brown eyes, droopy and unsure, tucked away into his own height with his arms up high as Aleks pointed a gun at him. But after the Creatures it was certainly better than nothing, and Trevor’s proven himself more than enough nowadays. Aleks still remembers the fucking _shock_ on his face when Aleks snatched him out from the Hub and they ran, ran until Aleks fell to his knees coughing and Trevor damn near puked on the side of the road.

But he had still followed Aleks without question, in the middle of the chaos, and that was enough. Two years ago it was enough, and it’s still enough now.

Trevor kills another one and Aleks finally pops open his beer. He keeps watching quietly for a little bit as Trevor checks the scope again before moving to another portion of the empty building he’s in. Mishka lifts her head again at the sound of the can opening, barks once, but Aleks clicks his tongue at her and she slowly lowers back down onto her paws, giving him a huffy little dog sigh that Aleks grins at before she settles back to sleep. On the screen, Trevor pops off another kill and chuckles absently under his breath while Aleks watches.

“Let them live, Trev,” he mutters, and catches Trevor looking at him sideways. Trevor’s always had a knack for reading him, whether Aleks wants to admit it or not, and after a moment he speaks.

“...bored?”

“A little,” Aleks admits after a few seconds of silence. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Trevor’s quiet for a bit, and then he looks back over at the screen.

“I guess no one’s got anything for us,” he says, and rubs at his face with one big hand. Aleks sniffs a bit, slumps a little more into the cushions. He’s not sure if Trevor remembers what day it is. He’d still been new to the Creatures at the time, and Aleks had really just sort of dragged him in and hoped for the best. “Dude, maybe we could, I dunno, go rob some convenience store or something. For old time’s sake.”

“You’re such a fucking idiot,” Aleks says immediately, laughing and shooting him an incredulous look. “What the fuck, Trev? A convenience store?”

“I’m bored, too! I’m just trying to offer up a fucking solution,” Trevor defends himself, but his eyes are still on the screen as he hunts down another person. “Man. You’re so mean to me.”

Mishka lifts her head again as Aleks giggles, her ears pricking up before she yips a couple times in response. Her tail starts to wag back and forth, and both cats lift their heads at the sound, too. Aleks is just chuckling as he takes a swig of his beer at last, bitter and cold on his tongue. Mishka barks again, and Aleks has to swallow before he snaps his fingers at her.

“Mishka,” he chastises, still a smile on his face, and she flicks her ears again, stares at him. “Stop.”

Trevor yelps loudly and suddenly when Sonic takes off from his lap, apparently done with all the noise in the room. She’s a little black blur as she darts somewhere into the kitchen, and Aleks half watches her go before he turns back to watch where Trevor is massaging his thigh and muttering before he picks up the controller again to settle back down into the couch.

“I’m just saying,” Trevor continues, and slowly Celia puts her head down again, but her eyes stay open. “Like, I dunno, we could figure out _something._ We haven’t been out in like… what, a month? I’m bored, too, dude.”

Aleks considers kicking up his legs, putting them where Sonic had been just to annoy the fuck out of Trevor by invading his personal space. He watches as Mishka gets down off the loveseat to follow Sonic somewhere into the kitchen, tail wagging. The sounds of the game drown out the clicking of her nails as she walks, and Trevor takes out another guy in the game before he starts talking again.

“We could, I dunno, see if Fake Pine’s up to something?”

Aleks snorts.

“Dude, you know they don’t want to work with us. None of the Fakes do.”

Trevor shrugs, sighing.

“Just a thought,” he mutters, eyes on the screen again. “Sorry.”

Aleks glances over at him, just out of the corner of his eye, considers for a long moment. He thinks a lot, even now, about how working in a crew had ruined everything. It had opened Aleks’ eyes to a lot of the benefits, sure, but he’s still feeling the sting of it all even after two years, and the last thing Aleks would ever want to do is try and go through that again. It left its mark, as burning and vivid as the one on Aleks’ wrist. He’s ignored it lately, the black swirls of the name almost lost in the dark blues he’s had tattooed around it.

He doesn’t look at it now, but it still fucking mocks him every day, a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that he can never shake.

Trevor had asked about it once, but Aleks had just shrugged. It’s not worth the explanation, in the long run. Trevor had… accepted that well enough, he figures. Aleks has still never seen whatever name is on Trevor’s wrist, and he doesn’t ask about it out of respect. Still, sometimes he’ll catch Trevor after a shower, or at night when he’s taken his watch off, just… staring at his wrist when he thinks Aleks can’t see. There’s a sad look in his eyes that Aleks knows all too well.

He rubs his hands down his face. Fuck today.

The game lets out a loud noise of celebration as Trevor pops off the last opponent, all from his humble little sniper’s nest, and he sighs as he passes the controller over to Aleks instead. Celia finally gets up too, stretches out before hopping down off the couch and heading towards the kitchen as well. Aleks keeps the controller in his hands, turning it over and over while Trevor watches.

“...maybe we _could_ , I dunno, go hold up a store or something,” Aleks says after a moment, and he can practically hear Trevor’s eyes rolling.

“Sounds boring.”

It takes Aleks less than a second to realize the voice doesn’t belong to Trevor - too high, too feminine, coming from _behind him_ , and he can feel Trevor freeze up next to him before they both whirl around on the couch, snap to their feet.

Aleks, hilariously, finds himself holding up the game controller like he plans on whipping it as if it were any kind of veritable weapon, and while it’s heavy enough to hurt on impact, he figures belatedly that it’s not going to do any real damage. Instead the two of them just stop what they’re doing, every muscle like stone as they stare at the woman standing almost casually in their kitchen entrance.

“You can put that down now,” she says, sounding amused as she leans on the threshold, arms folded. “If I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead.”

It’s a cliche line, one that Aleks has heard a million times in real life _and_ in movies, but out of her mouth it’s real enough, so slowly Aleks lowers the controller. From next to him, Trevor’s white with terror, and it’s no wonder why. Aleks only has to take in the close-cropped red curls and the flashy tourist shirt to know who she is, and what she can do, but it’s the colorful splash of Tetris blocks running down her one arm that really assure Aleks how actually fucked the pair of them really are.

“You’re Jack Pattillo,” Aleks breathes, and her smile grows a little wider. She seems very pleased that the both of them are scared shitless when she hasn’t even got a gun in her hands. That, Aleks can see, is still strapped to her white shorts. A small comfort. They’re not dead yet, then.

“Yep,” she says, and tilts her head, eyebrow raised. “And you’re Immortal, am I right?”

Aleks swallows hard, nods his head slowly. She nods her head in reply, pushes off the wall as she takes another step into their living room. Just her presence is a threat, and Aleks can feel every nerve in his body screaming desperately to run away.

Everyone knows about Jack Pattillo. Second hand only to the Kingpin himself and the best pilot the Fakes have; Aleks has heard enough about her to know that whatever she wants with them, she’s going to get it. They never really ran into her during the Creatures’ peak, but he knows Kootra had met up with people from the Fakes a couple of times, and he’d mentioned more than once that they were Not To Be Fucked With. When Kootra used the F-word, they listened, so Aleks kept out of their way, and he always got the feeling that was the right choice.

But instead of immediately threatening either of them, Jack just looks over at Trevor, inclines her head a bit.

“Ah. Modest, I’m assuming. Right?” she says after a moment, her smile growing a little when Trevor shakily nods. Aleks can hear him swallow hard, throat clicking with it. “Sorry. Last we checked up on you, you still had blond hair.”

“...I grew it out,” Trevor says weakly, and she winks at him.

“Nice shirt,” she adds, and looks back over at Aleks. He stares back at her and for the first time realizes that Celia and Sonic have both wound themselves around her calves, purring happily, and Mishka trots back into the living room like it’s no big deal. He scowls down at her, because some fucking guard dog she is, and Jack laughs a little bit like she knows what he’s thinking.

“I’m good with animals,” she says, by way of explanation. Her boots thunk ominously on the hardwood as she walks towards them, but she doesn’t draw her weapon; she just nods her head in Aleks’ direction. “Anyway, I know it’s kind of abrupt, but I need you to come with me. It’s nothing bad, I promise.”

Trevor shifts, and Aleks can see the fear in his eyes even if his face is neutral. That’s a - that’s a tall order, it’s one that Aleks has heard before, and above all it’s one that Aleks knows he has to weigh carefully. There’s just as much a chance that she’s going to put a bullet through his head the second he goes with her as there is her being sincere, and he swallows hard.

“Why?”

Her smile grows a little, but this time there’s something dangerous about it.

“The Kingpin wants to talk to you about something,” she says casually, but the dangerous undertone looms over Aleks. She follows it up with, “it’s a non-negotiable kind of thing, you see.” Aleks can see the way that she smiles, a promise there for if he doesn’t listen. “He sent me to come get you because, rest assured, I am much more than a messenger.”

That in and of itself is a threat high enough that Aleks nods his head, trades a look with Trevor. Trevor’s expression is still carefully, carefully neutral, and Aleks finds it somewhere in himself to be proud - but his eyes are wide and his nostrils flare as he breathes in.

Aleks doesn’t… know what’s about to happen to him, not by a long shot, and he’s searching frantically for things he could’ve done that would’ve pissed off the fucking _Kingpin._ He’s coming up blank, and that scares him. They’ve been off the grid for a while, the two of them, though not as thoroughly as either of them thought if the Fakes knew that they had dyed their hair… but Aleks hasn’t really been active since he quit the Creatures. He can’t think of anything he could’ve _done,_ and while it’s slightly comforting, it’s also scary as fucking hell. He’s rolling right into this situation blind.

He makes his decision, though.

“If I go, nothing happens to him,” he says firmly, back straight.

Jack rolls her eyes.

“You know,” she says, shaking her head, but her voice is… almost gentle, “showing that soft belly of yours already is a good way to get yourself killed.” She eyes him critically, though, looks over at Trevor before nodding her head. “I just need you. He’s fine.”

Aleks almost grins at her, but keeps quiet. The only thing he can really do is trade another look with Trevor. Trevor’s eyes are wide and he looks like he wants to say something else, looks like he wants to protest, but Aleks just reaches out and claps his shoulder a couple of times before he stretches a leg out over the couch to join her. He can feel Trevor’s eyes on him, and he just hopes Trevor remembers the number Aleks gave him almost two years ago in case of an emergency.

Brett’s going to be so pissed.

“I’ll bring him back in a couple of hours,” she says to Trevor while Aleks slips his shoes on, like they’re on a date and she’s talking to Aleks’ parents or something. “So you can save the SOS call for if he _doesn’t_ come back at all, understand?” When Trevor doesn’t immediately respond, she inclines her head a bit. “We’ve got our best on your phone, so I _really_ wouldn’t. Understand?”

Aleks hears Trevor swallow, and at Jack’s gentle prompting Trevor nods, and then slowly sits back down on the couch.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says quietly, and looks over at Aleks.

In some… vague attempt to calm him, Aleks supposes, he tries to smile at him before he follows Jack out the door. He hadn’t even really considered in the first place how she got _in,_ but the breeze from the kitchen window is all he needs to connect the dots, and he barely holds back a groan. Damn. He’s a fucking idiot.

“As long as you cooperate,” she says as she leads him up the staircase towards the roof, “you’ll be delivered safely back home. We’re not out to get you, Immortal.” She looks over her shoulder, curls bouncing. “Though I’m going to admit… it was pretty fun to scare the hell out of you.”

He scowls at her, but she just laughs and keeps climbing the stairs.

She leads him up the the top of the roof, where there’s… well, fuck. A literal helicopter waiting on the top of their apartment building, somewhere that definitely doesn’t have a pad. Aleks damn near stops dead in his tracks, stunned, but she just rolls her eyes again and beckons him forward, only a bit impatient. It’s a smaller copter, maybe more suited for transporting people than rigs, and she helps him inside before handing him a headset and then climbing in after him.

“Most people use cars,” he can’t help but say a bit dryly as she sets her own headset on her bright hair, and she gives him a bit of a smirk before she starts flicking switches.

“This is much more fun,” is her answer, and then they’re off.

Aleks spends the ride trying to figure out what he could’ve done that would warrant the Kingpin sending his second in command to come pick him up like a naughty kid after school. They never properly teamed up with the Cockbites, except on the smallest of heists that really only involved sending out one of their guys to help out the Fake Crew. Aleks has always tried to keep his head down, if only for his privacy if nothing else, and as he stares out across the expanse of the buildings below them, he can’t stop the anxiety thrumming steady through his veins.

He hopes Trevor’s not freaking the fuck out, though Aleks knows he definitely is. He’s probably going to rip Aleks a new one if he makes it back home. This is… probably the strangest thing that’s ever happened to either of them since they met, barring the total disintegration of everything they were building their careers on - but that’s a strong _whatever, dog_ in Aleks’ book.

“We’re heading down,” Jack says from next to him, muffled from the whirling of the blades above them, and Aleks’ stomach lurches a little as the helicopter starts to descend. It’s his first time in one, and indeed it’s his first time soaring over the roofs of Los Santos, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. He holds onto either side of the seat and forces himself to breathe in slow, watches her expert maneuvers. They’re heading towards one of the larger buildings, an apartment building it looks like, but tall and with dark windows. It’s much nicer than anything Aleks has ever been in, a far cry from the old office they’d rented out so many years ago, and the level of fanciness - and by proxy, Aleks’ nervousness - is only increased as they land on a pristine helipad.

Just like that it’s over, and Aleks can’t help but wonder if he’s about to get a bullet through his eyes. But Jack just sighs, taking her headset off and hanging it on the wheel as the helicopter powers down.

“..that was quick,” Aleks says a bit weakly, watching her shake out her hair again.

“Flying’s always faster,” she says easily, but she must sense his anxiety because she eyes him critically, one long sweep before she grins a little privately, leans against the frame where the door ought to go. Aleks slowly unclicks his seatbelt, feeling her eyes on him, and he’s not surprised when she speaks again. “You don’t have to be nervous, you know. You’re not in trouble.”

“...yeah, uh, all due respect, ma’am,” Aleks says after a moment, and he can see how she raises her eyes, “you sort of lifted me out of my apartment at like, lunchtime. Broad daylight. In a helicopter.”

She laughs brightly, and Aleks doesn’t know if it should comfort him or put him even more on edge.

“Well,” she says cheerfully, and swings her legs out of the helicopter, “Geoff’s always had a flair for the dramatic. Come on.”

Aleks can only gape at her for a moment, but at her pointed look, he follows.

She leads him down a staircase just off the roof, down into a fancy looking lobby at the top of the building. There are guards everywhere, and Aleks wishes more than ever he had armed himself even in the safety of their little apartment. He feels naked without anything to protect himself, feels like if this is a sham and he’s about to be ambushed that, well, he won’t even go down with any dignity. He’ll just have to swing his fists like a fucking moron and hope for the best.

He follows her, though, keeps as close as he can without coming off like a lost child. He keeps his back straight, tries to project some kind of confidence with how he takes firm steps and doesn’t make eye contact with anyone. He’s not even sure if anyone here knows who he _is._ Yeah, he had a reputation once upon a time - everyone knew about Immortal, if only in part due to his relationship with the rest of the Creatures - but he’s changed, and he knows he has.

The parts of him not dedicated to his composure are kind of… intimidated, nonetheless. It’s a nice building, and whatever office they had tried to make their names in all those years ago pales in comparison to this place. It’s not a very tall building, in the long run - Aleks can see buildings adjacent to them through the big windows, and they tower over them - but it’s still _big,_ and Aleks feels out of his depth with his striped hoodie and his khakis and his shitty sneakers. Everyone else is wearing a suit, at least - although thankfully Jack stands out too, and that makes Aleks feel a little smug, at least.

It’s only about a five minute walk, and then almost too suddenly Jack is holding open a door and nodding at Aleks to walk inside.

“Go on,” she says slyly. “He doesn’t bite.”

That’s... promising. Aleks swallows hard and steps inside.

It looks a bit like a conference room, though smaller. He feels like it could be homey, with a big table in the middle and ten chairs neatly pushed in around it. On the one wall, there’s a corkboard, and Aleks only catches a few of the pictures before he turns his head again, keeps looking around. There are two exits, the one he came in through and one on the other side - he notes that, though he doesn’t know what good it’s going to do him. On the whole the room is light and open, big windows that breathe light into every corner, and as the sunbeams reflect off the surface of the table Aleks can only look up at and make eye contact with the man sitting at the head.

“Hey there, Immortal,” he says, calmly, inclines his head. “Thanks for coming.”

Aleks tries to grin politely, but his heart thumps hard in his chest.

He’s never met Geoff Ramsey - the _Kingpin_. Few people have, if Aleks is going to be perfectly honest, and that alone is enough for him to be nervous. But the door shuts with a soft click from behind him, and Aleks just stands at the other end with his arms at his sides and his mouth a thin line. He doesn’t know why he’s here, but damned if he’s not going to be every bit the deadly thief he made his name on. If this is the first and last impression he ever gives them, he’ll make it worth their time.

The first thing he can’t help but notice is Geoff’s eyes: they’re blue, and hooded like he’s too tired to keep them open. It reminds him of Trevor, those sad droopy eyes that took Aleks in from the moment he saw them, but where Trevor incites something warm and familiar in Aleks’ chest, Geoff just makes him feel nervous. There’s ink running all the way up his arms, into where his dress shirt is rolled at his elbows, and then more tattoos on each knuckle where his fingers are interlocked just underneath his nose. He looks… exhausted. Run down. Aleks can’t begin to pretend that he knows what the most powerful man in the city gets up to, but it looks like it might be getting to him.

“...thanks for the invite,” he says quietly after a moment. “I think.”

Geoff chuckles, runs a hand through his hair before he looks over at Jack.

“No trouble?”

She scoffs, sits down on the table right next to him.

“Of course not. Who do you think I am?”

He watches as Geoff sighs, rubs at the corners of his eyes with one hand before he leaves his fingers there, like he’s warding off a headache. Aleks can’t speak for anyone, but… he thinks he might see Jack’s eyes soften just a little bit as she watches on, her back to Aleks. He can still see her profile, though, and how her eyes flick over at him.

“I’ve got Jenzen on the kid’s phone, too,” she says, inclines her head towards Aleks. “She’ll let us know if he calls anyone before we drop Immortal back off.”

“Good.” Geoff finally looks up, makes eye contact with Aleks before he gestures towards one of the chairs. “Sit down, Immortal. Make yourself at home.”

Aleks considers laughing at that, if only because they literally just snatched him out of his real home and now they’re acting like they gave him a solid gold invite to come all the way to Achievement Tower of his own volition. But he does as he’s told, slowly pulls one of the chairs out and then plops into it with all the decorum of a truck, huffs out as he does so. He’s not going to act like anything makes sense anymore, or that he’ll be able to work it out on his own. Only thing to do is wait for an explanation and hope it doesn’t end with a bullet in his brain.

“I’m sorry we sort of sprung all this on you,” Geoff says, once Aleks has settled. He sounds sincere enough. “I’m kind of swamped, didn’t really have time to actually set up a meeting.”

“...didn’t realize it was such a busy business,” Aleks says after a moment, unsure, and Geoff chuckles.

“Yeah, you know, I thought the same thing,” he says, runs a hand through his hair again so that it sticks up a bit. He’s unshaven, and Aleks gets the intense feeling that there’s a lot going on in this city that he’s entirely unaware of. He looks exhausted, and Jack just watches too, that same strange look in her eyes. She looks concerned, but he just continues. “I’ve got a,” he trails off, humming as he searches for the right word, “a proposition, we’ll call it, for you specifically.”

Aleks can’t help but blink, leans forward a little bit.

“What is it?” he asks after a second, curious despite himself. “The proposition, I mean.”

Geoff smiles at him past his fingers, and there’s something so blatantly dangerous about it that Aleks sits back again, swallows hard as all the hair on his neck stands up straight. Geoff doesn’t threaten him, though, or even say anything about Aleks’ forwardness, though Jack chuckles a little bit.

“In due time,” Geoff says calmly. “We’re waiting for someone.“

That doesn’t sound very promising, and Aleks starts to fiddle with the hem of his hoodie, though he doesn’t break that eye contact. He doesn’t feel like his life is in… _immediate_ danger, though he’s not sure that one wrong move won’t have his brains splattered on the shiny windows just like in his video game. He doesn’t exactly slump in his seat, but he does sprawl out his legs a little bit and sighs, thinning out his lips a little bit as Geoff runs a hand through his hair again.

“Would you like a drink?” Geoff says, after he’s patted his hair back down. “We’re dry here, but water, soda - “

“I’m good,” Aleks says tightly, well aware that he’s being rude again. Jack raises her eyebrows, but Geoff’s lips quirk up into a cheeky grin at Aleks’ boldness. He looks impressed, maybe, or at least Aleks’ lack of propriety has endeared him to the most dangerous man on this half of the country. Either way, it’s a good thing. Aleks grins a little bit too, leg jumping against the floor with nervous, pent-up energy. “I’m just really interested in what I’m doing here, is all.”

Geoff lets out a breath through his nose, sits back and regards Aleks thoughtfully.

“We’re leaving the country for a bit,” he says after a moment. Aleks raises his eyebrows, confused, and Geoff clarifies. “My main team, I mean. We’re heading west for a couple of weeks, but something… came up. I need a crew who can take care of the dirty work while we’re gone.”

Aleks frowns, a line creasing the space between his eyes.

“I’m not in a crew,” he says slowly, sitting up a little.

“Well, no,” Geoff agrees, nodding. “Not yet, but - “

He pauses suddenly, head tilting, and then sighs as his lips turn up into something like a smirk.

“Ah,” he says quietly. “Speak of the devil. Here they are now.”

It takes Aleks a second. He turns his head towards the door he’d come in, and now that he’s paying attention he can hear the distant sounds of loud arguing. People are coming down the hallway, though Aleks can’t really see through the windows all that well. But - something shifts in his stomach, something that feels like anxiety, or maybe dread. It’s a freight train barreling towards him while he’s tied to the tracks, it’s the feeling of impending doom mixed with the excitement of reaching the top of the roller coaster, and Aleks is frozen in place with nowhere to turn. He’s free-falling off a cliff, heart in his throat.

“You know how fucked up this is?” A loud voice, irritable and high, floats in from the hallway. “You can’t just drag a guy out of his home against his will, man, no matter how fuckin’ creepy you look in your stupid mask or, or who you work for, this is such fucking _bullshit,_ dude - “

Aleks doesn’t remember rising out of his chair. He doesn’t remember getting to his feet at all, but the door opens and two figures come in - one sort of pushed, the other one doing the pushing. The latter, he recognizes - the Vagabond, someone not to be crossed, someone that Aleks has ever only seen in passing and swore to himself he’d never fuck with, never even get in his line of sight if he could help it.

The other -

He looks - different, is Aleks’ first and immediate reaction. He’s wearing less than he used to, just baggy jeans and a t-shirt and a hoodie, but Aleks can map out all the changes in less than a couple of seconds. He’s not as lean as he was when they were younger, stupid kids running around Los Santos five years ago, but there’s still a presence about him that takes Aleks’ breath away. His hair’s _long_ now - it’s curly. Shit, Aleks hadn’t realized it was curly. He had always kept it short, but now Aleks can see that it’s a mess of curls tied up in a bun at the crown of his head. His beard’s fuller, his face older, everything about him - angrier, maybe.

He doesn’t immediately see Aleks. He wrinkles his nose at Geoff, though blessedly he stops all his bitching. But then his eyes slide over to Aleks.

There’s a pause.

Honestly, Aleks is waiting for him to full-on punch him in the throat, or maybe turn around and walk out the door, or maybe even tackle him to the floor and choke him out. The line of Aleks’ back is tense, ramrod straight, a bunny rabbit about to dart away, and finally they lock eyes - they’re still that deep shade of brown, still wide, but there are bags under them that Aleks doesn’t remember. He just stares at Aleks with those eyes that Aleks couldn’t forget if he _tried_.

Finally, he breaks the silence.

“...what the fuck,” he says slowly, disbelieving, “did you do to your _hair_?”

Yeah. Okay. Aleks should’ve seen that coming.

“Nova,” Geoff says cheerfully, and Aleks hits the bottom of the cliff. “Glad you could make it.”


	2. the assignment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY IT'S TAKEN SO LONG :( i really underestimated how badly the end of the semester was gonna fuck me, and i wasn't really able to put time aside to give this chapter the time it deserved. but here it is now!!!!!! i hope you guys like it, it's a little wordy but we're getting places now :>
> 
> thank you as always to [hannah](http://cockbite.tumblr.com) for being a cheerleader and helping me out with some rough parts of this chapter, and also [jackie](http://hrtbnr.tumblr.com) for just being so goddamn NICE and then of course to [robin](http://jamesmarchant.tumblr.com) for being a fantastic beta! they're all the reason this chapter even came out ;w;
> 
> finally, come say hi over on [tumblr](http://myriadus.tumblr.com)!

Of course. Of course he’d make a fucking comment about his hair. Aleks _really_ should’ve seen that one coming.

“ _Fuck you_ ,” he spits, hands curling into fists as he glares. “What the fuck did you do to _yours_?”

Nova instantly makes a face at him, nose wrinkled in disgust as he rears his head back a little. Everything Aleks had felt for him, everything he had buried - the anger, the hurt, the betrayal - it all comes rushing back to the surface, boiling and bubbling like water running over the lip of a pot. He hates him so viscerally that he wants to turn on his heel and leave and never look back. He wants to keep running, because that’s what Aleks does best.

But in the same measure, he wants to _fight._

“I - what the fuck does that even _mean_? I _grew it out_ ,” Nova snaps, takes a step closer at the same moment that Aleks does. Everyone else in the room seems to be simply watching, possibly to see if they kill each other. Aleks could put good money on that being the case if this escalates. “What about you? Look like you’re in a shitty spy movie, you lose a bet with a bottle of bleach?”

“You look like you stuck a fucking fork in a, in a fucking power socket, you _bitch -_ “

“Don’t _call me_ a _bitch,_ you fucking sack of _shit -_ “

“Could’ve seen this coming,” Aleks hears Jack mutter, and she sounds amused, but the rest of Aleks is still shuddering with anger, all of it twisting in a knot in his stomach. They’re less than a foot away now, and Aleks wants to get right in his face, wants to puff up and intimidate in the same way that he wants to dart out the door. He doesn’t like how Nova’s glaring at him - it sets off his fight or flight, puts him on edge. It’s like something itching underneath his skin, the need to get closer, to fight and burst out and get Nova’s throat between his teeth.

“Do not,” Aleks says in a low voice, furious, “call me a _sack of shit._ ”

“I’ll call you whatever I want,” Nova hisses, and they’re finally nose to nose, and that inch of height that Nova has on Aleks doesn’t deter him at all; he just pushes his shoulders back, makes himself bigger with whatever he has. They’re both dangerous people, and Aleks knows it, but he thinks maybe that if he’s angry enough he could take Nova in a brawl, and right now he’s close enough that he wants to try. “You fucking _two-faced_ \- “

“Boys,” Jack says from her spot on the table, and she sounds amused, “now, now. No fighting on the good carpet.”

“Fuck you, Nova,” Aleks says, shaking with fury as he finally takes a step back. Nova looks like he’s the same, his cheeks growing red and his mouth thin. The two of them just glare at each other, hatred and spite rolling off the pair of them in powerful, angry waves. The Fakes are in no way a group safe to _disagree_ with, but through the haze of rage sitting behind Aleks’ eyes he couldn’t care if he tried. How dare they do this to him? How _dare_ they shove Nova back into his life when he never wanted anything to do with him again, when he was finally fucking free of his shitty sneers and his shittier attitude and his _stupid fucking handsome face -_ “No, seriously, fuck you. Fuck this. I’m out.”

“Yeah, for once I agree with you,” Nova says, and his tone is ugly as he backs away, too. Aleks doesn’t take his eyes off him. “This is bullshit, I’m going the fuck home -”

“Sit down,” Geoff says then, and his voice is calm yet firm. He’s been watching the two of them silently, but there’s something about his posture that suggests he would’ve stopped any altercation before it got too far. “Believe it or not, I really don’t give a fuck about whatever beef the two of you have with each other. I’m not here to play therapist.”

They both whirl around and burst into protest immediately, talking loudly over the other.

“But he - “

“This _fucker -_ “

“I thought I just said,” and Geoff’s calmness is still there, but there’s something harder underneath it despite how reedy his voice is, “that I don’t fucking care. Sit down and shut up. I’m gonna get a migraine.”

Aleks still has half a mind to argue some more, but the Vagabond is still standing in the door, and the other door is behind Geoff and Jack. He doesn’t have any kind of exit strategy, nor a weapon, and it’s not like he can just _fight them -_ he’s not the most physically imposing guy around, after all. He’d be attempting to get past the owner of the building they’re in, which definitely doesn’t seem like it would end well, especially given that two of said owner’s best guys are in the room with him. That, plus the fact that said owner is the most powerful man in the city, doesn’t give Aleks a whole lot of options.

There’s a lot of factors against him, and with a hard sigh, Aleks sits down in his chair again.

Nova scoffs from above him, but Aleks just crosses his arms and stares straight ahead at Geoff, his mouth set thin. He doesn’t consider it giving up, or surrendering - he just figures that he weighed his options and decided the best course of action They’re not idiotic, suicidal kids anymore, and if this is going to get Aleks more information, then fine. It’s something Brett would have been surprised at but proud of and, to be honest, if Nova’s going to judge Aleks for it than he can go fuck himself.

There’s a pause in the room, and then Aleks hears the distinct pull of chair against carpet as Nova wrenches a chair out from the table and sits down, too. He does it with all the decorum of a kid throwing a temper tantrum, huffing loudly, and Aleks… almost smirks a little, at that. Two years, and of course nothing’s changed. He acts like he doesn’t notice, or care, but he sneaks a side glance and sees that Nova’s put a chair between the two of them. Well, whatever. That’s fine. Aleks doesn’t give a fuck about him anyway.

“So, _what_ , then,” Nova says, though his voice is blessedly quieter, and there’s an edge of business to it now that Aleks remembers from the old days, “since I was in the middle of something when this fucker showed up.” Here he gestures half-heartedly at the Vagabond before crossing his arms like Aleks, and Aleks can see how Jack stifles a grin before she straightens up her shoulders again and looks over at Geoff.

“Like I told Immortal, I have a proposition for the pair of you,” Geoff says calmly, and Aleks tries not to scowl. Yeah, well, he wouldn’t have even considered it if _this_ was his option. “And it could get you one hell of a payday, so you might want to listen before you just say fuck it.”

“You’ve already got a lot working against you,” Nova says a bit nastily. Aleks hates that he really has to agree. “Better be a good fuckin’ proposition.”

“I can get to that if you can just hold your biting commentary after every little thing I say,” Geoff says dryly, an eyebrow raised a little. “Do you think you can manage that?”

Aleks doesn’t have to look over at Nova to know that he’s biting the corner of his bottom lip, agitated and grumpy but obediently keeping his mouth shut. Nova has a lot to say, a lot of the time, but he’s smarter than he lets everyone think he is, and Aleks knows that. He remembers easily enough how things tended to play out back in the old days, when the fighting got real bad. It was a constant back and forth between Nova and Kootra even at the best of times, and Nova usually only lost because everyone else was getting sick of it. It really is weird to think how little has changed in the long run.

“Are we good?” Geoff asks after that moment of hanging silence.

Nova grunts.

“We’re good.”

Geoff settles back in his seat, tents his fingers together just under his nose as he regards the two of them thoughtfully. Aleks feels like he’s being observed under a microscope, Geoff’s lidded eyes sweeping over them both like he’s taking in every miniscule detail, and it makes him uneasy. He’s never very much like being observed. Aleks can hear the door clicking quietly shut from behind them, and when he looks over he sees that the Vagabond is simply leaning against it, mask in his hands. He’s handsome underneath, even with all the paint speared over his face, but he looks bored.

There’s a sudden stab of anxiety in Aleks’ chest that makes him sit up a little straighter. Geoff had said he had a proposition for the two of them, but Aleks also knows that you don’t just get to see the Vagabond unmasked and live to tell the tale. There were really only a couple of options here, and every last one of them has the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.

“Here’s the thing,” Geoff says finally, and Aleks pays rapt attention. Geoff’s speaking… not necessarily slowly so much as if he’s going over each sentence before he says it. It’s careful, deliberate. “A few years ago, I was fucked over by a very powerful man. I don’t like this man very much, as you can probably imagine, and right now, he’s making plans to leave the country _because_ I don’t like him very much.” He smiles again, sharp and deadly. “Which is a pretty good decision to make.”

“Yeah,” Nova says, “I get the feeling you don’t usually take no for an answer.”

Instead of getting mad, Geoff just laughs. It’s a bit thin, and it’s certainly tired, but it’s very genuine. It’s a belly laugh, sharp and gleeful, and somehow it sets Aleks a little more at ease. It’s a good laugh, and it makes Aleks feel a little less like he’s about to have his head blown off while his back is turned. From next to him, Nova shifts a bit in his seat, and Aleks wonders if he’s smiling, too.

“You’re absolutely right,” Geoff says when he’s finished, though he still chuckles a bit as he leans back in his seat, looks at the both of them with his fingers still touching at the tips. “I really don’t. It’s a pretty good business model, most of the time.”

“It’s gotten us pretty far,” Jack adds, her tone very wry and knowing. She’s still sitting on the table with her back turned, and from where her hands are rested, Aleks can see the script on the inside of her left wrist, but he can’t read it from the other side of the table. Without really thinking about it, his eyes flick to Geoff’s wrist, too. He can’t see the script as well as he can on hers, with the ink that’s swirling delicately up Geoff’s arm… but he wonders.

He’s snapped back to reality by Nova side-kicking the leg of his chair. Aleks looks over to glare at him, but Nova makes no move to suggest he’d even brought Aleks back from his daydreaming in the first place, and if not for the fact that they’ve worked together before, Aleks would wonder if he’d even done it on purpose. There’s still a chair between them, but Nova’s tall enough that he was able to reach.

Against his better judgement, Aleks gives Nova a bit of a onceover. He’s slumped down in his chair, one cheek bunched up by the fist he’s leaning on, and Aleks has to take in the sight of him again. Now that he has time to _see_ him, and now that the shock is worn off, he can really notice the changes, the ways that Nova just looks… different. He looks so damn rundown, the bags under his eyes deep and, to Aleks’ eyes, old. He looks like he’s aged a lot in the two years since they last saw each other, and Aleks can’t imagine what he might’ve gone through - not that he particularly cares.

But Nova is watching Geoff with absolute, undivided attention, and after another moment or two Aleks turns his gaze forwards again. His lapse of concentration had barely even been so, but it’s enough that he has to grab context where he can get it in the middle of Geoff’s sentence.

“ - we’re heading west, like I said,” and okay, Aleks can glean something from that, “and unfortunately, our travel plans pretty much line up with his. I have a few other crews that could handle it but to be entirely honest…” Geoff hesitates for a moment - not out of uncertainty, it would seem, but because he’s choosing his words carefully. “...what I need is a crew who’s willing to get dirty in the process. Very dirty.”

Aleks can’t decide if he should be offended by that one, so he decides to go halfway and just smirks a bit knowingly. From next to him, Nova shifts a bit in his seat.

“What about Fakehaus?” he says, still slumped down with his arms crossed. He sounds bored. Aleks has never really worked with Fakehaus before, but Brett’s good friends with one of them - he knows they tend to be quieter than the original Fake crew, tend to do things with a bit more finesse than the other crews around. “They’ve gotten dirty before. No need to call us in when you got them, especially when we don’t even have a crew and they’ve got like a dozen people.”

Geoff nods a little, cocks his head as he studies the pair of them.

“Yeah, but they don’t play dirty like I’m looking for,” he says, like he’s thought that through already. “I’m looking for you. I want what you’ve got to offer.”

“What _about_ us?” Aleks says, a little confused. “We’ve been off the grid for two years - “

“ _You’ve_ been off the grid for two years,” Nova snaps, his tone just barely a click under vicious. “I’ve still been working, asshole. Not all of us cut and run when we can’t take the heat.”

Aleks sneers at him instantly, not bothering to grace the comment with any other response. Nova just glares at him for a moment before sinking further into his seat, and the air of aloofness he gives off is almost admirable. It’s like he doesn’t care what anyone in the room has to offer him, whether it’s a deal or his own head on a platter. Now, _that_ is entirely different from the Nova he remembers - but then, Aleks reminds himself, he ought not to care about that.

“Children,” Jack warns again, and they both settle a bit childishly. Geoff rubs at the bridge of his nose, eyebrows coming together as he sighs. He sounds exhausted, and when he takes his hand away he moves to loosen his collar instead. Aleks watches his every move, tries to formulate a response in his head.

“I’m going to cut to the chase,” Geoff says, leaning forward so that his arms rest on the table. Aleks hears Nova mumble something that sounds like _finally,_ but he ignores it, settles instead for mimicking the action and leaning forward too. He’s curious, despite himself. He wants to know what’s so special about the two of them, what makes them in such a high demand by the _Kingpin,_ that he would want them to take care of it for them. It may be a test, or it may be a suicide mission. Either way, Aleks wants to know, and he’ll toss a little bit of pride out the window to find out.

From next to him, he hears Nova sit up a little straighter, and he stifles a grin.

 _Not so different in the end, you and I,_ he thinks. _All that fuckin’ pride and you wanna know too, Nova._

“I don’t like this son of a bitch very much, as we’ve established,” Geoff says, and there’s a steeliness to his blue eyes. “In fact, I’d really like to watch the motherfucker die a cold, hard death. It would warm my cold, hard heart considerably. So here’s what I want from you guys.” There’s a silence for just the briefest of moments, that sets Aleks on edge, the feeling right before you jump out of a car, before you pull the trigger, when the world stops itself on its axis to accommodate your every move. “I want you to rob the Grand Central Casino.”

There’s a pause, and then the world jerks back into rotation.

“Yes,” Aleks breathes, at the same time that Nova says, “What the _fuck_?”

“I want you to rob it _blind_.” There isn’t even a hint of humor in Geoff’s tone. He’s deadly serious, and with that seriousness comes a thrum in Aleks’ blood. “I want you to leave the place in ruin, with a little wrath thrown in if you feel so inclined. I want you to fucking decimate the place. He owns it. I want him to watch everything he has crumble into fucking _dust._ ”

Aleks can feel that thrum growing stronger, almost like anxiety if not for the excitement it brings, that throttles him and has him practically vibrating in his seat. A job. Not just a job, though - a job from the Kingpin that’s grander than anything they could’ve ever even imagined up when they were in the Creatures. Something so spectacular and life-threatening that Aleks is already going to agree before he’s heard the rest - but Nova gets there first.

“What do we get for it?” he asks, the more rational of the two of them right now. His eyes are narrowed, his arms still crossed, but he’s straight-backed in his seat, and his tone is that of a man already making a decision. “What’s in it for us?”

Geoff smiles that sharp, tired smile at him. It’s dangerous, but almost calm.

“Well,” he says, sitting back a little, “you get to keep half of whatever you take. Which is a good paycheck on its own, I’d say. But,” and here he pauses, clearly being very careful with his words, “as much as I’d love to put my own bullet through the guy’s head… I’ll be out of town.” There’s a sparkle in his eyes that would set off Aleks’ fight or flight reflex if he weren’t already so strung tight. “So. If you do the dirty deed for me? You can keep everything. Every last cent. How’s that sound?”

“Everything?” Aleks asks, stunned, his hands flat on the table surface. “From the _Grand Central Casino?_ ”

“Everything you _take_ ,” Jack corrects, almost delicately. “And… I think there was also talks of maybe…” She trails off pointedly, tilting her head in Geoff’s direction.

“Oh,” Geoff says, snapping his fingers like he’d forgotten something. “Of course. Right. Yeah, you’d also be under our protection for as long as we need you, which…” He actually chuckles a bit. “I mean, if you do me a favor like that, you’re basically in the club until you say you want out, or you, you know, fuck us over somehow. Moooost people don’t do that part, though,” he adds thoughtfully, and Aleks almost shivers. Like he’d try to fuck over the Fakes.

From next to him, Nova’s gone oddly quiet, and he’s chewing on his lip again. Aleks knows that’s a sign that he’s _thinking,_ that he’s going over options in his head, because Nova may have been a lot of things but he’s never been stupid. And if the proposition is only extended to the pair of them as a unit, then it’s up to Nova, because Aleks is ready to _go._

“Just the two of us, robbing the Grand Central Casino?” Nova finally asks, almost quietly. He’s never been quiet before, and Aleks looks over at him, confused by it. “Or you want us to get some extra people, too?”

“Do what you want with your crew,” Geoff says easily, waving his hand a bit at them, but then his eyes go oddly soft. He regards the two of them, and his hands tent again as he looks between them before he speaks. “I know you two have had some… difficulties in the past. A crew is probably the last thing on your minds. But,” and again he smiles. “You’d _really_ be doing me a favor here. And I think you’ll find that what you get in return is totally worth it.”

“Nova,” Aleks says under his breath, but Nova doesn’t turn to look at him. “That’s like, millions of fucking dollars, dude, we’ve _gotta_ -”

“I don’t _gotta_ do _anything_ with you,” Nova replies sharply, angrily, turning on Aleks so fast that Aleks actually jerks back a little bit. There’s such a bitterness in Nova’s expression that for a second, Aleks is lost for words. That’s… that’s definitely not the Nova he quite remembers. A bit volatile at times, sure, but not _mean._ “The only reason I’d say yes at this point is ‘cause I’m strapped for cash. Starting a crew with you?” He wrinkles his nose in what looks like disgust. “No thanks. Been there, done that.”

“You’re acting like I cut and ran without a good fucking reason,” Aleks snaps, recovering from his shock and seething immediately. “Holy fucking shit, Nova, you forget the crap you pulled when we met? Did that slip your mind somehow?”

Nova smiles at him, shows off all his perfect white teeth.

“Oh, trust me, babe,” he says snidely, “I could _never_ forget that.”

The endearment raises all of Aleks’ hackles, and he’s halfway to a response when Nova turns back to Geoff, his expression hard and closed off again. His shoulders are up a little, like he’s blocking Aleks out, like he’s trying to create his own little bubble Aleks can never get into. It brings his hood nearly up to his ears, and Aleks just stares at him with his mouth open.

“I’m in,” Nova says stiffly, ignoring him, “but only ‘til we get the job done. Then I’m out again.”

It’s such a sudden, shocking admission that Aleks isn’t even sure how to respond. He had expected Nova to decline immediately, to tell them all to go fuck themselves and then try to leave. It’s the Nova that Aleks had thought he had known, but there’s two years that Aleks has no account for, no idea what Nova could’ve gone through, or done, or thought. The last time he saw Nova was when he was clutching a cellphone, white-knuckled and hoarse, listening to his soulmate and his best friend die on the other end of the line.

“That’s… fair, I suppose,” Geoff says after a moment of contemplation. He seems a bit surprised, too. “I mean, I can’t really make you stay, can I?”

“No,” Nova says, and his smile is charming, but there’s something under it that Aleks can’t place. “I guess you can’t.”

“Cheeky,” Jack says under her breath, and finally slips off the table. Her boots make a soft, muted thump against the carpet as she does so, and Aleks watches her leave the room through the door behind Geoff without saying anything else. From the other door, the Vagabond actually sighs and rubs at his temples before he too leaves, and the door clicks shut behind him. It leaves only the three of them in the room, Geoff at the head and the two of them on the other end. There’s a thickness to the air, something tense and uncertain until Geoff speaks again.

“It’s a shame what happened to the Creatures,” he says softly, softer than his voice has been since they met. Aleks can feel Nova going still. “You guys had a lot of promise. We had our eye on you for sure, back when Burns and Hullum were still in this part of the country, and we had some plans for you. But… plans change.”

He sighs, runs a hand through his hair so that it sticks up on end, and he too gets up, pushes away from the table as he does so. Aleks, sensing it’s the respectful thing to do, gets to his feet at the same time, and after a moment so does Nova.

“You have your chance now to rebuild,” Geoff tells them both, and his tone is serious, serious enough that Aleks actually finds himself holding his breath as Geoff speaks. “I’ve got faith in you two. Find a crew, figure out a plan of your own. Get back to me when you do. And then?” He grins. “Burn the _motherfucking_ place to the ground.”

There’s such a… a tone of _pride,_ almost, like Geoff expects the most out of the two of them, that Aleks has to grin too. He’s not usually one for making other people proud, and he’s even less about working in a crew… but that’s a big paycheck, and it’s one that could at the very least leave him and Trevor with a better place than what they’ve got now.

“Yes, sir,” he says, giving him a smug, fake little bow. It’s cheeky, like Jack said, and Geoff chuckles a little bit as he pushes his chair in.

“We’ll be in touch,” he says, authoritative and firm. “Dismissed.”

It’s a pretty abrupt way of ending the conversation, but it seems to satisfy Nova well enough, because he pushes his chair in without a word and makes for the door behind them damn near instantly. Every limb is stiff, like he wants out as fast as possible and throwing pleasantries out the window is the quickest way to do that. Maybe it’s just the social thing too - Aleks remembers something vaguely, distant like a fuzzy memory, that Nova hated crowds - but Geoff’s voice stops them both.

“Nova.”

One hand wrapped around the doorknob, Nova freezes, shoulders tight and lip between his teeth again. It’s an odd calm in the room, one that just has Aleks looking between the two of them, unsure of what to do. But then Geoff sighs a little, a weary sound that lets out the tension in his own shoulders. He’s suddenly a lot older somehow, in both his eyes and his voice.

“For what it’s worth,” he says, oddly gentle, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

The doorknob creaks a little in Nova’s hand, but he huffs out something like a laugh.

“Thanks,” he replies quietly, and then he’s out the door.

“Oh, shit,” Aleks says out loud, because that’s not exactly how he expected this to end. He manages to throw a thanks towards Geoff too before he jogs out the door, finds that Nova’s power-walking his way down the hallway and towards what looks like a staircase. He looks angry, really angry, texting something heatedly on his phone, and Aleks follows after him quickly, not sure why he’s even doing so. He doesn’t like Nova - he’s carried that bias deep in his chest for over four years now, but if they’re going to work together to get that big fucking money, they need to at least chat about it first.

“Yo, hey, hold up, Nova,” he says, trying to fall in line with Nova’s steps - but he nearly falls flat back on his ass as Nova whirls around and gets right in his face. His cheeks are pink, and he looks _pissed,_ and Aleks is startled enough that he doesn’t immediately have a response other than to stutter out, “yo, what the _fuck_ \- “

“Let’s get something straight here,” Nova hisses, and yeah, he’s intimidating but Aleks pulls his bearings together and straightens his spine right back at him, “we’re not friends. We’re barely even acquaintances. I just wanna get this done and go home, man, and the faster we work out some stupid heist, the faster that happens. So fuck off otherwise.”

“Wh - you’ve got a lot of nerve getting shitty with me, you know that?” Aleks snaps back, and there are people in the hallway that are looking at the two of them, but he doesn’t care. “What, you think you’re some - some innocent little fuckin’ angel, that you didn’t have a fuckin’ hand in all our shit falling apart - “

“I didn’t _bail_ when my crew _needed me!_ ” Nova snarls over him, and God, he sounds fucking _furious._ “I didn’t leave my fucking phone on voicemail when two people just _died,_ I didn’t fucking run for the hills when shit hit the fan, I _stayed with my crew!_ ”

“They weren’t my crew anymore!”

It must be the wrong thing to say, because Nova scoffs angrily and turns around, slams the stair door open and starts making his way down the flights. Aleks follows, more out of stubbornness to have the last word than anything else. The door slams shut behind him, and in the emptiness of the stairwell he lets his voice raise, lets it rattle off the metal railings and echo off the walls.

“And just like, just a question here but _seriously,_ why the _fuck_ would I want to stay with _you_ anyway?”

Nova whirls around then, and with him halfway down the stairs and Aleks standing at the top, he has to crane is neck to see him. Aleks just stares down at him, at all his curls he didn’t know he had, at the tired look in his eyes that’s been almost entirely overridden by the anger.

“It’s been _four fucking years,_ ” Nova says thinly, and slowly makes his way up each step as he speaks. “Four fucking years, you keep holding that over my head - “

“Because it’s not something I can just _forgive!_ ” Aleks shouts, because it _isn’t_ , because no matter how many different ways he can try and put it into words, that moment is branded in his memory forever. That betrayal, that loss, it’s stuck with him while Nova clearly moved on from the start. “I can’t just fucking _forget,_ you fucking shithead! You know? You fuckin’ lied to me, about - about _that_ \- “

“Jesus, you’re a crybaby,” Nova sneers, and turns on his heel to start walking down the stairs again. “Poor Immortal, says he got lied to nearly half a decade ago, now he’s throwing a temper tantrum about it - “

“You _did_ lie!” Aleks doesn’t mean for his voice to get so loud, but it does - it goes deep and hollow, an old pain rising to the surface despite his every attempt to keep it at bay. He lurches himself down the stairs and grabs Nova’s hood before he’s really thought about it, jerks him towards himself to yell right in his face. “You fuckin’ lied to me about being my _soulmate_ and now you’re acting like I’m in the wrong for being fucking pissed about it!”

“And now _you’re_ just, like, manhandling me out of nowhere,” Nova says, though when he shoves at him Aleks can see that his hands are shaking a bit. “Christ, you’re even ruder than I remember. Why don’t you go fuck off, take a different staircase? I’m sick of your attitude.”

“You’re such a _dick,_ ” Aleks snaps, infuriated, though he does let go. “God, you’re so fucking insufferable, dude, what the _fuck._ ”

Nova doesn’t quite smile.

“I’m told it’s my best quality, besides my eyes.”

Aleks can only watch as Nova heads down the staircase again, taking them quickly and without pause. He remembers when they had first met, how he had trailed just a little behind Nova as he led him up seven flights of stairs into a tiny little apartment, how for the first time Aleks had almost felt like he belonged somewhere, and _with_ someone. Like the world had tried to click itself into place, but the puzzle pieces were just a little bit off. Nova doesn’t stop, keeps going down the steps and it’s only when Aleks can’t see him past the flights that he speaks again.

“Are you waiting for me to say sorry or something?” Aleks demands, and he hates how his voice cracks. “Is that what you fucking want from me? Because you’re not gonna get it. You never said sorry to _me._ ”

He hears Nova’s footsteps slow, his stupid skater shoes squeaking briefly on the linoleum stairs before he comes to a complete stop, and then there’s a sigh. It sounds old, sounds exhausted, like Nova’s carrying a weight that he just can’t get rid of. Aleks stays where he is, unsure, waiting for Nova to either continue or come back up.

Nova does neither of those things. It takes a second, but then Aleks can hear him sit down with a soft _oof._

“Come down here, fucker,” he says quietly, and though Aleks wants to be contrary out of spite… he goes, takes the steps carefully until Nova’s in view again. He’s sitting on the stairs, and Aleks watches as he carefully takes the tie out of his hair and starts to run his fingers through all the messy curls. It looks soft. Somehow, that thought freaks Aleks out enough that he stays where he is, doesn’t move down any more stairs until Nova speaks again.

“Look,” he mutters, but it’s loud in the otherwise quiet of the stairwell, “I don’t wanna fucking fight. Okay? I just wanna get this shit done, get the money, and then never have to deal with this again. We just gotta find some people for a crew, fuck this casino up, and then we don’t have to see each other again.”

“Word?” Aleks says dryly, and sniffs once. “I already got a crew in mind, actually. I know a few people who’d probably be willing to pitch in for that kind of cash.”

“Oh good.” Nova’s tone nearly matches Aleks’, and he looks up at him with all of his hair puffed out in a black cloud around his face. “Good fuckin’ job, then. Glad you can dump our old crew and get a new one whenever you fuckin’ feel like it.”

“They weren’t my crew anymore,” Aleks repeats, irritated.

“Well they were still _mine,_ ” Nova snaps, but just as quickly as his anger seems to flare up, it flickers out again, and he looks off into some middle distance that Aleks can’t see. He’s still got his hair tie in one hand and he plays with it absently, eyebrows drawn together while he thinks. Even from up above him, Aleks can see his eyes flicking back and forth, and… despite the fact that he shouldn’t, Aleks slowly makes his way down the staircase until he can carefully sit a couple of steps above him.

“Yeah,” he says, a little unsure. “They were still yours.”

Nova huffs from below him, and they settle into a quiet for such a long moment that Aleks isn’t even sure they’re going to speak again. But Nova breaks it, with his voice so careful that it’s like he’s stepping around glass scattered at his feet.

“Where’s your accent?”

It’s such an unexpected question that Aleks blinks a couple of times, startled.

“What?”

Nova gestures at him, stares at him out of the corner of his eyes.

“Your accent,” he repeats. “You don’t have it anymore. You still had it a little bit the last time I saw you.”

It’s such a dumb little thing for Nova to take note of; Aleks hadn’t really paid attention at all, desperate as he had been to get out of Russia all those years ago. Perhaps it’s just because he’s spent so much time with Trevor, watching American TV shows and movies, emulating what he heard until the accent just sort of… faded out. Aleks supposes it must still be there, but he never really notices it anymore unless he’s speaking Russian.

But clearly, Nova had noticed.

“I dunno,” Aleks says after a moment, uncomfortable with something as personal as his accent suddenly laid out in the open. “Just… went away, I guess? I never really cared all that much, really.”

Nova hums.

“You just sound like a regular old American now,” he mutters, half to himself, and Aleks just has to watch as he brushes his pants off as if there were anything on them in the first place. Aleks can’t help but watch him go through the motions of it, watches how his shoulders sag just briefly before he pushes back his sleeves and then reaches up to twist all his hair back up into a bun.

Aleks startles a bit when he catches sight of all the tattoos - they’re on both arms, starting at Nova’s wrists and disappearing into the bunched up sleeves of his hoodie. They’re bright, neon even, shades of yellow and red and inky black coloring his tanned skin into works of art that remind Aleks instantly of his own arms, of all the work he’s put into his own tattoos. They’re gorgeous, is his immediate thought, and he can feel his mouth dropping open as he stares at them, as he watches Nova’s long, delicate fingers work his hair up again.

He’s still wearing the beads on his left wrist, and somehow that’s the most startling thing of all.

“Fine,” Nova says quietly, and his arms go back down. “Okay. Fine. We’ll do this. It’ll be fine.”

Aleks doesn’t really know what to say to that; the air’s shifted in the stairwell somehow, something tenser, something that Aleks doesn’t really have a way to identify. He watches as Nova gets to his feet, slowly, like an old man - Aleks remembers, like sharp, jagged reels of film flickering past his eyelids, like pieces of his memory that he had forgotten -

He remembers Nova getting kicked hard in the back during a heist by a big guy in steel-toed boots, yelping and then choking on his own breath. He remembers watching him go down like a sack of bricks, remembers that spike of horror before it hit him that he wasn’t supposed to care, remembers how Dan had had to swing one of Nova’s arms around his shoulders and help him stumble into their getaway car. He wonders if it still gives Nova problems now, wonders if it’s an old ache that settles painfully when it rains.

“...so we’re doing this,” Aleks says after a moment, and he gets a snide little smile, one that wrinkles Nova’s nose up just a little bit.

“I guess so,” he says, and heads down the stairs again. Aleks watches his hand slide vaguely down the banister, and after a moment he follows.

“I have some people in mind, like I said,” he says, trying to pick the conversation back up if only for the sake of business. He has no desire to talk to Nova otherwise, but if they’re going to pull off robbing the fucking Grand Central Casino, they need to have a plan in mind. That, to his intense chagrin, involves conversation. “Unless you got somebody you wanna call in.”

“I don’t have anybody,” Nova says simply. Aleks doesn’t know quite what he means by that, so he lets it be. Nova’s still walking down the stairs, and the air of distance he’s suddenly put between the two of them is heavy and awkward.

Aleks sniffs, rubs at his nose once before he clears his throat.

“Well, anyway. Who do you think we’re gonna need exactly?”

“Dunno,” Nova says, and Aleks huffs in exasperation. Okay, well, he probably deserves this, but still. It’s starting to get annoying. This is the biggest payday of their lives, and he’s not even paying _attention._ Regardless, Aleks tries to soldier on, because he’s nothing if not stubborn.

“I know a pair of, like, what are they called… cat burglars, we could use them maybe?”

“Mm,” Nova hums vaguely, reaches the bottom of the staircase and makes an immediate beeline for the doorway. Aleks follows after him, and while there are guards on either side of the door when they exit out into the lobby, the guards only look at them briefly before nodding them through. Nova damn near jogs to the exit, his back straight and his steps hard, and Aleks follows after him, still trying to talk.

“Or, like, you know, I’ve got, uh, I know a _really_ good getaway driver, even if she’s kinda nuts - “

“Okay,” Nova replies, and pushes through the regular door instead of the revolving door, which is a felony in Aleks’ eyes, but he allows it because he’s starting to realize that Nova doesn’t actually give a fuck. They walk out onto the street, where everything gets exponentially louder and brighter; it’s still the middle of the day and the business of the nicer part of Los Santos is in full swing.

It smells like industrial smoke, like street cart vendors and the mix of perfume, cologne, and sweat as they fall in line with the people walking on the sidewalk. Aleks can hear horns honking, people yelling, sirens in the background - it’s the part of the city where things are _bustling,_ rather than falling apart at the mortar like their part of town. The sky is blue above them, a bit of a wind blowing through, enough that Aleks tugs his hood a bit more firmly around his neck. People are walking back from their lunch breaks, in tailored suits and talking on expensive phones, expensive enough that Aleks immediately feels out of place as he tries to keep up with Nova.

Nova, who’s ignoring him, eyes forward and chin high, pissing Aleks off with every step he takes.

“And uh… this clown guy,” he says carefully, still falling into step with him, watching his expression like a hawk, “we can fit like, twelve guys in his tiny little car, you know, it could really come in handy.”

“Yep.”

Something snaps somewhere in Aleks’ head, and he speeds up, spins around and plants himself firmly in Nova’s way. It’s such a sharp reaction that Nova startles, jerks back a little bit as Aleks gets right in his face, heat rising in his cheeks from his frustration, his anger, that buried-down-deep pain that still likes to thump painfully in his chest if he thinks hard enough about it in the middle of the night.

“Listen,” he says, and it’s not so much a plea for Nova’s cooperation as it is a hissed, bitter demand. Nova blinks at him. “You know what? Fuck off with this shit. You don’t get to fucking do this, you don’t get to fucking act like you want this shit to be over with and then fuck off and give me the silent treatment!”

There’s a pause.

“The silent treatment,” Nova repeats bluntly, his eyebrows going up a little. “You think I’m giving you… the silent treatment.”

“Yeah,” Aleks replies, and he’s at least got Nova listening to him again. “Yeah, I fucking do. It’s the fucking silent treatment, dude, and it’s fucking annoying.” He moves away just a little, and a few people weave around them, but the post-lunch crowd has thinned out enough that they’re not immediately in someone’s way. “If it helps you fuckin’ sleep at night, I don’t wanna work with you any more than you wanna work with me. You wanna get this over with so badly, then let’s just fucking _do it,_ man. Quit throwing your shitty little tantrum and _work_ with me. Then I’ll fuck off, and you’ll fuck off, and that’s the end of it.”

Nova’s eyes flick between both of his, wide and dark and closed off. Up this close, Aleks can practically count his eyelashes, can see where his beard’s just a little overgrown, where the wrinkles under his eyes are deepest, where the bags are darkest from a lack of sleep. He just looks at Aleks for a long moment of silence, lips parted, but Aleks watches as first they form a thin line, and then an equally thin smile.

“You’re right,” Nova finally says, and claps him on the shoulder. It sounds so insincere that Aleks wants to move away from it. He doesn’t, instead lets the motion sway him a little bit before he straightens himself out again. “It’s like a bandaid. We’ll just rip it off quick.”

“Good,” Aleks replies stiffly, and suddenly remembers that they’re standing in the middle of a crowd, and that they’re getting in people’s way. Nova holds their gazes for a moment longer, and then he’s walking away again. His assumption seems to be that Aleks is going to follow, which… pisses him off more, really, because he’s right. He does follow, watches as Nova briefly rubs at the corners of his eyes before he starts talking again.

“Whoever you wanna hire for this thing, I don’t really care,” he says, and they stop on a corner, waiting for the crosswalk to change. Aleks waits with him, because he’s not sure where either of them are going. He’s just following Nova, hoping that it’ll actually lead to something. “I don’t have anyone in mind. As long as your people can do their jobs, call them in. If they fuck it up, that’s on you.”

“Way to be a team player,” Aleks says dryly, and Nova turns his head a little bit to glare tiredly.

“Mm. Those are some mighty strong words coming from the guy who, you know, ditched us,” he replies evenly, and Aleks can’t actually argue with that, so he lets it slide as the crosswalk switches over and they start to walk again. “I don’t think we’ll need anything too big. Yeah, it’s the fuckin’ Grand Central, but quality over quantity.”

“So you’re just… leaving that to me, basically.”

“I’m _trusting_ you,” Nova says sweetly, turning a corner. “What, you think you can’t handle it?”

“I can handle it,” Aleks replies immediately, well aware that he’s being played. “Fuck you, I can definitely handle it.”

They’ve reached a less crowded part of town, still nice but with a bit less shiny new buildings, with more chain link fences and brick apartments rather than business towers that are all made of glass and iron. It feels more like what Aleks is used to, though not quite to the level of cheap that he knows yet. Nova keeps walking, seemingly having ended the conversation, and Aleks follows.

“You might want to call a friend, or an Uber,” Nova says then, just as a car pulls up and he walks towards it. Still, Aleks trails a bit behind. As soon as he’s close enough he can see that the car is a little older, but it’s familiar somehow - he’s seen that car before, years ago.

The window rolls down and a fluffy head pokes out, squints at Nova through the sun.

“Yeah, next time Geoff Ramsey lifts you out of your apartment, can he at least give you a ride home, too?” the guy says, one eye nearly shut, but he’s still smiling a bit. “That was pretty rude of him not to.”

“You’re telling me,” Nova says, and for the first time he doesn’t sound so angry. Aleks stands on the sidewalk, the wind blowing his hair, the scent of fall in the city strong in his nose. He suddenly feels a thick, choking sense of loss, for a reason he can’t begin to explain. He almost wants to claw at his chest and rip the feeling out before he reaches his eyes, before he starts crying about a feeling he doesn’t like, as if he were an infant incapable of understanding pain.

“I guess we’ll see each other soon, then,” he says, can’t think of anything else.

There’s a moment of quiet where the guy - Joe, he’s almost positive the guy’s name is Joe - looks over at him and Aleks can see his eyebrows go up in recognition, but then Nova’s hand is on the top of the car and he’s looking at Aleks with an unreadable expression. He taps the car a couple of times with his palm, looks like he’s considering what he wants to say, and then slowly walks up to Aleks. His head is down, and he takes a deep breath before he squints a little at Aleks, looking him up and down.

“I guess so,” he says quietly. “How do I know you’re not gonna duck out if this shit gets bad?”

“I won’t,” Aleks says through his teeth.

Nova just shrugs.

“Haven’t given me a good reason to trust _that._ ”

“You’ve got so much _fucking nerve,_ you know that?” Aleks says, almost prods Nova in the chest like an old grandmother. But he’s angry, and he wants Nova to feel it, wants to make sure he knows what a fucking asshole he’s being, even now, all these years later. “You think you get to, like, take the high ground ‘cause I dipped out, when the reason I even left in the first place was _because_ of you, you fucking dick -”

“I didn’t make you leave,” Nova says softly, but it’s less a tender kind of soft as it is the dangerous kind, the type of soft that would make a man lesser than Aleks quake in his boots. Instead, all it does is make Aleks just that much angrier. “I didn’t tell you to leave. You did that all your own, that wasn’t on me.”

Aleks sneers at him, but takes a step back.

“Whatever,” he says, shaking his head. “Whatever, dog.”

He doesn’t know how they’re going to do this, how they’re going to be able to work together when they can’t even go two minutes without arguing about something, when Aleks can feel the anger and the bitterness - not just in himself, but radiating off Nova in waves, the two of them just a cycle, a feedback loop with no end in sight. Aleks doesn’t even know if he _wants_ to do this.

But... _one_ heist, _one_ chance, and he has more money than he knows what to do with. He gets to work under the Kingpin’s protection and, most importantly, he never has to see Nova again.

He _can_ do it, regardless of whether or not he wants to. The payoff will be worth it.

“I’ll see you around,” he says, starts to back away. Nova watches him, an unreadable expression on his face. Aleks can’t find it in himself to care very much about what Nova thinks about him now; he just wants to get this over with, and as quickly as possible. He doesn’t want to deal with Nova any more than he has to, deal with his smirking face and his shitty attitude.

Aleks turns on his heel, has plans to get as far away as he can before Nova’s voice stops him in his tracks.

“How are you gonna see me around if you don’t have my number?”

The amusement in his voice is what pisses Aleks off the most, because it’s so - it’s teasing, almost, it could’ve even been gentle if they had been different people. It sounds like something a friend would say, and they’re _not_ friends. They’re not acquaintances. Nova had made that clear when he’d flipped his shit, and now he’s treating Aleks like they’re best buddies again. It tenses Aleks’ shoulders up, makes him have to take a deep breath before he turns around again.

“Careful,” he says through his teeth, “I heard that line only works in slutty bars.”

“...sleazy,” Nova says after a moment, when the quiet’s become awkward. “It’s _sleazy_ bars. Not slutty.”

Aleks hates him so fucking much.

He slaps his phone into Nova’s outstretched hand with a scowl on his face. Nova just mutters _fucking idiot_ and starts typing something into the contacts. Aleks stands there, hands shoved in his pockets and a deep frown on his face as he watches, and as soon as Nova’s done he practically snatches his phone back, shoves it in his back pocket and wishes he had a pair of sunglasses to hide behind.

“We done?” he asks sourly, and Nova takes out his own phone, checks the text message he sent from Aleks’ phone.

“We’re done,” he replies evenly, and puts his phone back in his pocket.

For a moment there’s a silence between them, broken only by the sounds of the city and Joe’s car running behind them. Aleks just has to stare at him for a moment, unwilling to back down, unwilling to be the first one to break the eye contact. Again, he can’t help but notice all the changes to Nova’s face, the lines there, the tiredness, the way he just looks so much _older._ It occurs to him suddenly that maybe he looks different too - maybe there are lines on his own face that Aleks doesn’t know about, differences that Nova’s taking in as his eyes sweep Aleks’ face, too.

How old they are now, and how strange life has become. Aleks swallows hard, suddenly feels something like loneliness clogging up his throat.

“Then I’ll see you around,” he repeats, with authority, and he can almost see Nova sigh. It’s not exasperated, but… exhausted, maybe. The walls are still up, but Aleks wonders if he just watched a fissure crack its way up one side.

“Yeah,” Nova says, and they both take a step back at the same moment. Like that, the spell is broken, and Aleks can turn on his heel and start to walk away. His heart’s thumping loudly in his chest, like he’s run some kind of marathon, and it feels like anxiety icing up his veins, making him feel like he needs to lean against a wall and just breathe. Two years, _four_ years, really, and Nova can still do this to him. It’s not _fair._

He’s only a couple of feet on his way when Nova’s voice stops him again.

“Hey, Immortal.”

Sighing loudly, obnoxiously, Aleks turns.

“ _What -_ ”

He freezes. Nova’s standing on the other side of the car, his feet perched on the inside of the door so that he’s raised up above the roof. The wind blows at his unzipped hoodie, at the stray pieces of hair sticking out of his bun, and Aleks stares at him as he looks at Aleks for a second. And then he _grins._ It lights up his face, and the lines become less old and more gleeful - he looks as handsome as he had the first time Aleks ever met him, mischievous, young, for a moment utterly on top of the world. Aleks can only blink at him, stunned.

“For the record,” Nova says through that blinding smile, his eyes full of something Aleks can’t put a name to, “your roots look fuckin’ _awful._ ”

Aleks feels his wretched, mutinuous heart skip a beat.

“Fuck you!” he shouts, and Nova laughs loudly as he hits the roof of the car once and slips back inside - it speeds off, and Aleks has half a mind to chase it as he watches it zoom down the street. Instead he just stands there like a dumbass while people stare. “ _Fuck_ you, Nova!”

And then just like that, he’s alone again. Aleks scratches at his hair and sighs loudly, squinting up into the sun as he lets out a little _tch_ of annoyance and then pulls his phone back out of his pocket. He doesn’t have any missed calls, nor voicemails, so Trevor must’ve done what Jack asked of him and not tried to contact him yet. He sighs, pulls up his contacts as he starts to scroll through them. There aren’t a lot, but he’s got a few names in mind so far.

He has a good idea of who he wants. If they want to pull this off, they’re going to need people who aren’t just _good_ at what they do, but _real_ good. He still doesn’t know how many they’re going to need, but he starts to list them in his head as he runs through them all, one after the other, considers giving all of them a call before he decides to take care of his most immediate problem first.

Thankfully, he finds who he’s looking before he gets to Nova’s name, and he clicks it, raises his phone to his ear and hopes he’s not about to get his ass reamed.

“ _What. The. Fuck._ ” Ah, shit. “ _What the fuck, Aleks. Do you have any idea what the last two hours have been like, you fucking moron?_ ”

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Aleks says dryly, and Brett makes a frustrated sound - Aleks can picture him rubbing at his temples, eyes squeezing shut tight as he paces in a circle. He knows he’s in trouble now, but he pushes on anyway, tries to pitch his voice up a bit higher. “Can you come get me? I need a ride.”

“ _I could kill you. I could literally throttle you right now. You do not want to get in a car with me.”_

“Brett,” he whines, turning on the spot. “Is that any way to talk to someone who just got kidnapped by Geoff Ramsey? You’re gonna start threatening me with violence when - when I’ve just had the scare of my life? You’re gonna do that to me? Your friend?”

“ _You are so full of - you’re gonna_ wish _you were still with him when I’m done with you,”_ Brett says, but Aleks can hear the jingle of keys in the background, and he can’t help but smirk as he starts walking towards the nearest corner. “ _And also, who told you that you could just give my number to people? Who the fuck is this Modest kid? He just calls me up in a panic and says Jack fucking Pattillo lifted you out of your apartment, what am I supposed to do with that?_ ”

“See, this is why you keep me around,” Aleks says, crosses his arms a little bit as he looks up towards the sky again. “I keep you young, _somebody’s_ gotta keep you on your toes and it might as well be me.”

“ _You_ age _me, you shithead._ _Where are you_?”

Aleks looks up at the street signs nearest to him, reads them off with his eyes half shut as Brett bitches and sighs into the phone. He can hear Brett getting into his car, the door slamming shut behind him and the sound of the engine turning over. At least he can always count on Brett, even when he’s pissed him off significantly.

“ _So what did Ramsey want with you, anyway?”_ Brett asks, and Aleks makes his way over to the building closest to him, leans against it for a moment before deciding that he’s too keyed up to sit still - instead he starts to pace back and forth, hoping Brett’s not that far out. _“I can’t think of how you could’ve possibly pissed him off, since you barely ever leave your fucking house anymore._ ”

Aleks hesitates.

“That’s,” he starts, pauses, tries again. “Maybe we should talk about that in the car, and not on the phone. It’s a - it’s a fucking long story, dog, and I really think I wanna see your face while I tell it.”

“ _Gross._ ” Brett sighs. “ _Well, whatever. I’ll be there in probably… fifteen, give or take the traffic. Think you can last without me for that long?_ ”

“I can take care of myself, thanks,” Aleks says, still walking in a circle. People walk by him, entirely oblivious to how his life’s just utterly been turned upside down. He stares at the graffiti on one of the buildings across the street, traces the thick lines and bright colors with his eyes. It’s a CVS on a corner, but it’s still one of the nicer ones, and he watches as people walk in and out. He has… a lot to process, and more to explain to Brett. “I still need to call Modest back, let him know I haven’t gotten blown up by Mogar or some shit.”

“ _You’re lucky that didn’t actually happen,_ ” Brett says dryly, and Aleks chuckles, runs his fingers through his hair again. He pauses briefly, sighs into the phone as scratches at the nape of his neck.

“Yeah,” he says, and runs his hand over his face. “Alright, let me know when you’re here, I guess. I don’t think I’m going anywhere.” He hangs up once Brett hums his agreement, then runs his fingers over the little bit of stubble that’s started to pop up under his nose, across the underside of his jaw. It itches, and he thinks of Nova again despite himself.

It only takes a few seconds of deliberation, and then Aleks jogs across the street after a few cars go by, dips inside the store real quick. He has to walk down a few of the aisles, already dialing up Trevor’s number before he throws a fucking fit, and he finds what he’s looking for at the same moment that Trevor answers.

“ _Sasha, what the fuck -_ “

“Before you flip the fuck out,” Aleks warns, digging out his wallet, and Trevor quiets down, “I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

There’s a pause, and it still very much sounds like Trevor wants to flip the fuck out when he says tersely, “ _Where are you?_ ”

“Coming home soon. We got a lot to talk about,” Aleks says, and walks back up to the counter with the box of hair bleach tucked under his arm. “But okay, first things first. What do you know about the Grand Central Casino?”


	3. the crew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nghgh..... hello everyone... it's been... a while ajgdsjh i won't keep you with a long-ass author's note, basically the short story is i got a new job that required a lot more of my time than i was expecting, but thankfully it was a contracted job and now i am mostly free to write again!!!
> 
> thank u specifically to [maya](http://ragecutie.tumblr.com) for making [ANOTHER video edit](https://ragecutie.tumblr.com/post/176552378373/this-edit-is-based-on-myriadus-fic-series) for this series!!! i can't believe it!!! ;w; and another huge thank you to [robin](http://jamesmarchant.tumblr.com) for being the best beta ever ;w; 
> 
> lastly, come say hi on [tumblr!](http://myriadus.tumblr.com) and now, on with the fic!

If nothing else, Trevor’s interest is piqued.

“So, okay.” Trevor’s voice is quiet, curious. Aleks closes his eyes while gentle hands run carefully through his hair with a thin brush, slicking up his dark roots with bright, sky-blue cream. “Recap for me? I was distracted. You went to Achievement Tower, or, like, got kidnapped or whatever _,_ and they… told you to start a crew?”

“Ramsey told us to go to the Grand Central Casino, take as much as we can, fuck the place up, and then get the hell out of dodge.” Aleks stares at the Zippo in his hands, turns it delicately so that it catches the light from the mid-afternoon sun streaming in through the window. He can see his reflection in the polished metal, warped and almost silly. “And then we get to be part of the Fakes, like a - like a branch. A crew kind of comes with it, I think.”

There’s still confusion in Trevor’s tone as he hums thoughtfully, doesn’t answer otherwise. Aleks wants to close his eyes and bask in the feeling of human touch, of Trevor’s big hands tending to his roots and his long legs planted on either side of Aleks, but he’s far too keyed up, foot bouncing from where he’s sat up on the floor against the couch, a towel thrown across his shoulders. He feels like there’s something buzzing in his chest, in his head, the pit of his stomach where anxiety likes to live. 

“Yeah… okay. I guess that’s pretty cool, once you get past, like… the whole threat of being fucking shot to death by guards or whatever,” Trevor finally says quietly, almost like it’s to himself. Aleks huffs out a laugh. “So… you just get to keep all the cash?” 

Aleks sighs, flicks the Zippo open and fiddles with the wheel. He flips it closed again, eyes trained on the hinge before he snaps it back open, flicks the lighter so that it catches. The flame dances, and then blows itself out from the wind coming in through the window. They’ve left it open to air out the smell of the bleach, and far below them Aleks can hear sirens starting again. It’s a sound that usually gives him comfort - the sounds of the city, muffled but alive and thrumming in a way that he can feel in his veins. 

“ _We_ just keep what we take,” he replies pointedly, and shifts on the ground. His ass is getting numb. “I want you with me, Trev. I don’t think I could even pull it off without you.”

Trevor huffs at him.

“I don’t know what good I could do,” he mutters, but there’s a hint of pride in his voice that almost gets Aleks to laugh.

“Yeah, okay, whatever,” he says, knocks the backs of his fingers against Trevor’s knee in a dismissive motion. Kid never gives himself enough credit, or in some cases, too much credit - but Aleks never had the heart to tell him that letting shit go to his head is a killer in this business. 

“There a catch?” Trevor asks, still sounding pleased, and Aleks sighs.

“The catch is that we either hand over half of what we get, or kill the dude who runs the place and we get to keep everything,” he replies, already trying to work out the logistics of it in his head.

Trevor’s quiet again, and he’s clearly thinking as he continues meticulously applying the bleach. Aleks still remembers doing this a year ago, both of them taking turns running poorly mixed bleach through their dark hair. He can still see their reflections in the mirror, squished together in the tiny bathroom and watching as dark brown slowly lightened. They hopped in the shower together and stood back to back in nothing but their boxer shorts as cold water poured bleach down the drain.

It had been - well, it had been a poor decision, mostly, it had been the two of them trying to hide their identities after a heist gone wrong. Aleks still thinks about Trevor’s wails of disbelief at _how stupid he looks oh my god what the fuck dude_ when their hair had come out a tacky shade of yellow, rather than the platinum blond Aleks sports now. Toner is truly a magical thing that Aleks discovered afterwards, but Trevor swore off the shit for life. There are still a few streaks left in his hair, buried in the bangs that hang down over his eyebrows. They remind Aleks of another time, one that feels like so long ago, even if it was still spent in the same apartment. 

Finally Trevor sighs again, and the brush clatters into the old dye bowl they’d bought as he throws it down. Next come the gloves, snapping loud enough to lift Mishka’s head off her paws where she had been napping before they’re tossed in the trash next to the coffee table. Aleks doesn’t have to look to know that Trevor’s running a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead in a nervous tic he’s had since they met. They both settle again while Aleks sets a timer on his phone, and he watches the numbers count down slowly as a silence stretches over the both of them. 

“The Grand Central Casino,” Trevor finally says, rolling the words almost curiously around in his mouth. “Dude… I mean… I don’t know. That’s a big fucking deal. Who else is coming?” 

The other shoe’s still there, waiting almost patiently to be dropped, and something tells Aleks that it’s hovering right above his damn head.. Trevor doesn’t know the exact details about what went down in the Hub all those years ago, but he knows enough. He’s not a stupid kid - he’s observant, quiet and unobtrusive when he wants to be, with a sharp eye for details that other people miss. Aleks is sure that even without being his closest friend, Trevor had caught the looks Aleks would throw Nova sometimes, the glares and the dirty looks and the sneers, and Aleks knows he would’ve been able to put two and two together. 

“Well,” Aleks says slowly, working it out in his head before he says it. He already has more than a decent idea of who he wants, but a lot of it is simply going to be convincing them to come along for what is sure to be a bumpy ride. “Hundar’s in. I already talked him into it in the car.”

“...oh.” Trevor sounds uncertain. “I don’t think he liked me all that much.”

It gets Aleks to laugh - Brett had been none too happy about Aleks having given out his number to someone he didn’t know, and he’d dropped Aleks off with the _very_ stern warning to never do it again, but… the idea of blood and carnage along with the promise of a _wicked_ payday had certainly cheered him up a bit, and he’d leaned out his window and told Aleks he’d be back in a little bit. Had to check something out that might help with that, he’d said, and driven off again. 

“He’s just cranky like that,” Aleks assures, patting Trevor’s knee a bit awkwardly from his position. “Don’t worry about him, it’ll be fine.”

Trevor makes a dismissive sort of noise, and Aleks feels careful fingers prod at his hair, cataloging the slow change from dark brown to blond again. Trevor knows better than to touch a lot, though, and Aleks almost snickers when he hears Trevor curse under his breath and then wipe the bleach off his fingers onto his own sweatpants. He’s probably going to bitch about that stain, too.

“So, you know about Intricate and Dynamite?” he continues, and feels rather than sees the motion of Trevor’s distracted nod. “They’ll probably come along, they’re pretty good, and, uh, Linzbot too. She can get us out of a tight spot if we need her.” 

He wants to run a hand through his hair but he keeps himself steady - a handful of bleach is the last thing he wants right now, so he just keeps fiddling with the Zippo. They’re all good people that can definitely help them out - Aleks just hopes that the money will be enough to convince them. 

“That’s still…” There’s a pause, and Aleks knows Trevor’s counting in his head. “Only six people. That’s not a lot.” 

“Sometimes less is more, dude. Look at Fakehaus, they only had, like, eight at the start.” Aleks is very patiently ignoring what needs to be corrected in their own number. “And the Fakes had seven or something. Get good.” 

“Yeah, well. They have a lot more now,” Trevor mutters half-heartedly, but then sighs. He sounds entirely like he knows that Aleks is right, but doesn’t want to admit it. 

Aleks takes his victories where he can, and scratches awkwardly at his collarbone for a long second before he clears his throat. They sit like that quietly for a few minutes, Aleks still flicking the Zippo and Trevor, presumably, staring vacantly out the window. It means he’s deep in thought, and Aleks lets him be for another moment or two. 

It’s true that their numbers right now aren’t ideal. The Grand Central, at least from what Aleks knows, has pretty tight security, and that’s without even getting into the amount of civilians that’ll be lounging there earning their cheap winnings and day drinking. There will be plenty of cameras and guards, and ‘although there’ll be a lot of exits he’s sure there’s going to be more than a fair share of of complications getting to them. Aleks was never really the one to come up with the plans - that was always up to Shay, or Dan, and sometimes Kootra would try too, but Kootra was definitely better at calling shots on a whim than trying to do any tough thinking beforehand. Planning things out ahead of time is likely something Aleks will have to leave up to Brett, or even - 

Fuck. He doesn’t want to have to do what _Nova_ tells him to.

The room reeks of bleach, and Aleks can feel his scalp tingling a little as his timer winds down slowly on his phone. It grounds him, brings him back to where he’s sitting on their shitty old carpet as he slowly puts the Zippo on the coffee table and lowers his hands again. He rakes his nails through the fibers of their carpet, breathes slowly and lets the sharp burn of the bleach in his nose focus him. 

“And, anyway,” he finally says into the quiet, “we have seven. Not six.” 

He can feel Trevor shift a little bit, settling into the couch, and his voice is curious, maybe even a little lighter. 

“Oh shit, really? Are they giving us someone to help out?” 

That would be the easy option, if Aleks were to be honest. Maybe if the Fakes had lent them someone like Rimmy Tim, or even Jack herself, they might have found themselves in a slightly more advantageous position. But he knows that they’re on their own for this one. 

They might be able to call in a few favors now and again - he knows that Geoff has at least a hospital or two in his palm, where he pays off the doctors to take care of both bullet wounds and cadavers without filing any police reports, and they’re paid _handsomely_ from what Aleks has heard - but other than that, it’s an empty road stretched out in front of them, and they’re going to have to decide which turns they want to take to reach their destination. They’ll need a place to work out of, they’ll need a way to communicate, they’ll need to have back-up plans and exits and safehouses and... This isn’t a hit and run, or a simple get in and get out. There’s a network of sorts to build here, and Aleks feels like he’s just staring at the pieces of it strewn across the dirty floor, all of them waiting for his next move.

“Nah. They left us on our own,” he says, and reaches up to rub the joints of his thumbs against either side of his nose. He leaves his hands there, takes a deep breath as if to steady himself before he drops them into his lap. He opens his eyes after a moment and takes a second to focus on the dark ink on his left arm, the swirls of color on his wrist that extend out into brilliant blues and greens. “That’d be too easy, man.” 

Trevor hums, and again Aleks feels him poking his fingers around his nape, checking the bleach. It’s clear he’s waiting for an answer, and Aleks’ heart speeds up a bit, adrenaline already rising in his throat like bile as he works himself up to the confession.

“No, it’s, uh,” he says, and swallows. “It’s Nova, actually. That we’re working with.” 

Aleks hasn’t lost any of his excitement over such a high-caliber heist, even if they haven’t even touched the planning that’s going to have to go into it. t’s a chance to prove themselves to some _very_ important people, and the buzzing of both anticipation and anxiety is hard for him to ignore. 

But... having to add Nova into the mix on top of it all?

His heart’s pounding loud in his ears. It’s the same feeling he gets when he goes in for a new tattoo, when he buys something expensive that he doesn’t need. In many ways, it’s the same feeling when he clicks the safety off his gun and leans out the window while Trevor drives. He still can’t quite put a name to that anxiety, though he imagines it must have one. Anticipation? Adrenaline? He doesn’t know. 

Trevor’s hands pause their careful ministrations, but he hasn’t quite frozen. Rather, it seems like he’s running the words through a couple times in his head before he answers.

“So what do you think?” he finally says, and Aleks blinks.

It’s… it’s a surprisingly simple yet eloquent response. Aleks didn’t really know what he had been expecting, but Trevor sounds merely curious again rather than upset or defensive. But then, Aleks is the one with the beef. Trevor has his loyalty to Aleks, and no personal connection beyond that, and it’s clear that he’s waiting for Aleks’ feelings on the matter before he forms any opinions of his own. It’s a mature response, something grown-up that Trevor probably wouldn’t have exhibited two years ago when they met. That, somehow, calms Aleks down just a little. 

“I don’t know,” he admits after another moment or two of silence. “I still fuckin’ hate the guy, and he made sure of that when I talked to him, but that’s - dude, that’s a fuckin’ bigass paycheck, you know? That’s a lot of money.” 

“Yeah,” Trevor says in response, still almost eerily unruffled. “But, like, I dunno. You gonna be able to work with him?”

“What do _you_ think?” Aleks parrots, in lieu of an actual answer, and again he feels Trevor shrug.

“Dude, if you say fuck him, then fuck him,” he says simply, though there’s finally a touch of aggressiveness that belies his laid-back response. It sounds like he mostly only cares because Aleks does. “But… I mean, yeah. That’s a _lot_ of money. So I’ll work with him if you’re cool with it, too. I’m with you, not him.” 

It’s an earnest answer, even if it’s said in that lazy way of his, and Aleks can only blink and shake his head a little bit as he twists around to stare at Trevor incredulously.

“When the fuck did you grow up?” he asks, sizing him up. Trevor’s looking back down at him, and Aleks takes in his hooded eyes, his freckled nose, the way he’s picked up a tan from the fading summer sun. He looks more grown up like this, skinny now, hair actually styled instead of just fluffing around his head, a beard growing on previously smooth, chubby cheeks. It’s weird to think that this is the same kid that couldn’t even drive when they met. 

But then Trevor’s nose wrinkles up a little, and he looks like a kid again, and something in Aleks’ chest swoops.

“Dude, I’m like, almost twenty-one,” Trevor says in disgust, swatting at Aleks’ shoulder and breaking the illusion near instantly. “Fuck you, Sasha. I’m totally grown up. I’m just...” He pauses again, unsure of how to continue, and Aleks watches him chew on his lower lip for a long second. “...are _you_ gonna be okay with it?” 

“I don’t know what you mean. It’s fine,” Aleks lies immediately, eager to change the subject. He doesn’t know his exact feelings on it, beyond the fact that he knows he hates Nova and wants this done as quickly as possible. But a part of him… a part of him is pretty excited, whether he’s willing to admit it out loud or not. “Besides, he wants to quit afterwards anyway. We only have to deal with him for a little while.” 

_That_ gets Trevor’s full and undivided attention, more than anything else had previously. He raises both eyebrows, his expression a bit incredulous as he blinks down at Aleks for a moment before simply saying, “oh.” 

Aleks stares up at him, his own eyebrows coming together.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Trevor says a bit hurriedly, and Aleks narrows his eyes. 

“Oh fuck that. Why _oh_?” 

“No, it’s - it’s just…” Trevor hesitates, fidgeting and then scratching at his beard a bit anxiously. He looks unsure, and Aleks continues to stare at him. “I just - that’s kind of… I dunno, weird? Shady? That’s kind of shady, don’t you think?” When Aleks just blinks, he gestures a bit, clearly uncomfortable. “Just gonna leave after we’re all done? Just like that, with whatever fuckin’ history it is you guys have?” 

Aleks hadn’t really thought of that, to be honest, and he takes a second to mull it over as he turns back around. True, that would normally seem a little... untrustworthy, if it were anyone else. But Aleks doesn’t want to work with Nova any more than he’s sure Nova wants to work with _him,_ so that hadn’t even been a passing thought. But now…

 _Would_ Nova pull something at the last second, just to get all the money instead? Take them all out somehow and with the upside of never having to deal with Aleks again? Could he end up fucking all over them over, leaving them with nothing - or worse, leaving them to the cops? It doesn’t sound like the Nova he _used_ to know, but it’s been years. Could he have changed _that_ much? 

Now he’s nervous. Shit. 

Leg jiggling now, Aleks takes a deep breath through his nose and lets it out slowly, going through his options in his head before he speaks. He has to really weigh the options, try to figure out what it is he wants to do. 

“Let’s… let’s see what Hundar has to say first,” he finally decides on, nodding his head. It’s not a very leaderly kind of decision to make, but Brett’s always got a pretty good idea of where to go next - enough so that when his fucking voice floats in from the kitchen, Aleks doesn’t even jump. 

“Oh?” Brett sounds amused as the door slams shut in the other room. “What _do_ I have to say?” 

“Fucking _god,_ dude _\- ”_ Trevor jumps, swinging around on the couch with startled anger in his voice. “Can people _maybe_ stop fucking breaking into our house whenever they want?!” 

“Sorry!” comes pretty quickly after that, but it’s laced with the laughter of a man that’s not very sorry at all. “Though is it really breaking in if you have a key?” 

Trevor wrinkles his nose and Aleks nearly bursts out laughing. Meanwhile Mishka immediately races into the kitchen, barking up a storm as she greets their newest guest - Aleks can hear her nails clicking against the linoleum, Brett cooing softly at her while she pants and paces in her excitement. Trevor turns back around on the couch, running his fingers through his hair and huffing a bit. It’s an annoyed sound, underlined with something maybe a little anxious, and Aleks pats him on the knee a couple times with his eyebrows up until Trevor stops fidgeting. 

“ _Calm down,_ ” Aleks says in Russian, rubbing at Trevor’s knee, and Trevor stares at him for a couple of seconds before sighing.

“Whatever,” he mumbles, slumping in his seat and crossing his arms. “Whatever, dude.” 

Aleks traces a soothing circle into Trevor’s kneecap with the side of his thumb just a few times before looking up as Brett walks into the room, boots clunking against the floor. As always, the mood in the room changes with Brett’s presence, swinging around into something charged yet calming. It’s as if any problem entering the room, Brett could solve just by virtue of being there. He leans against the threshold, looking around for a moment before he settles on the two of them in the middle of the room.

“I’m not asking,” Brett says after some contemplative silence, staring at Aleks’ hair. It’s still covered in bright blue cream, and he probably looks like a fucking alien. Well, that or a pretentious asshole. “We’re just gonna leave that exactly where it is.” 

“That’s understandable.” 

When he had come to get Aleks from outside Achievement Tower, sitting in the driver’s seat of his SUV hadn’t really done Brett’s physique justice - they haven’t seen each other in a while, what with Brett always floating between jobs and states. Aleks can see now that he’s standing in the tiny threshold of their living room what a difference half a year can make. 

Brett cuts an impressive figure between the wood paneling, arms crossed and bulging out of the sleeves of his t-shirt. He’s bulked significantly, gotten bigger and scarier looking, muscles tight and very, very prominent. The beard’s fuller too, and his hair curls in gentle whorls against his nape from under the brim of his hat. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he looks like he could snap them both in half without breaking a sweat, and Aleks is not for the first time grateful that Brett tends to lean towards their side.

Trevor hasn’t turned around yet, though there’s a bit of pink spreading across his cheeks that goes darker when Brett speaks again. He looks pretty ashamed, his eyebrows drawn together in a pout as he looks out the window from the corner of his eyes. Aleks can’t help but snicker.

“Modest, I’m assuming?” Brett asks, still sounding amused, and Trevor slumps further into the couch without answering. “Yeah. Thought so. Thanks for making my day an adventure.” 

“He _told_ me to call you if I ever needed help,” Trevor mutters, sounding bratty. It’s fair enough, though, and Aleks can’t help but be a little proud anyway. They hadn’t had any interference from the Fakes even though Jack had told Trevor not to call anyone, had said they had their best people on his phone - but Trevor’s smarter than that, and must’ve used the emergency burner hidden in the back of his sock drawer. Aleks laughs some more from behind his hand and then gets a glare shot his way in response. “I panicked, dude. Leave me alone.” 

Aleks watches as Brett holds up his hands placatingly.

“Whoa, I’m just saying, it’s been a crazy couple of hours.” He’s still got that glint in his eyes that means Trevor’s going to get the piss taken out of him for a long while to come, if they decide to do this thing for real. “You did the right thing. I just wasn’t, you know, expecting shithead over there to make me his fucking emergency contact.” 

Aleks shrugs his shoulders.

“You answered, didn’t you?” 

It’s clear that Brett can’t argue with that, so he just makes a sort of agreeable face. Trevor finally turns around to fully take him in, and Aleks watches as they size each other up properly; his first friend in Los Santos meeting his closest. Kind of weird. Aleks can see Trevor’s eyes flick up and down, assessing Brett’s appearance properly before he says, bluntly, “You’re not what I expected.” 

Brett actually _laughs,_ something delighted and maybe a bit startled.

“Yeah?” he says, hands going on his hips. “Well, kiddo, gotta say, you’re not exactly what I was expecting either.” 

Aleks chuckles. This was already going a lot better than he thought it would; Trevor can have a hard time getting along with people he doesn’t like, since he likes to be a brat sometimes, and god knows Brett only gets along with people when he wants to. It’s a pleasant surprise. He watches as Trevor actually cracks a grin, a far cry from his usually moody self when someone makes fun of him. He seems rather pleased, actually, that he got Brett to laugh, and Aleks watches as he turns back around and rubs at the underside of his nose, a very secret little smile on his face. 

“Well,” Aleks says, shaking his head with his eyebrows raised, “that was fuckin’ gay. Anyway, what were you doing after you dropped me off?” 

“I was checking some stuff out,” Brett says over Trevor’s indignant sputtering. “Doing recon, making some calls. I may have found someone with a home base for us. I mean, let’s be real, if you want to go all out with this thing then you can’t do it in your tiny little apartment.” When Aleks just blinks a few times at him, Brett gives him a wolfish little smirk. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, _Immortal._ I’ll take care of the bureaucratic parts. You can just sit there and look good.” 

Aleks glares at him, but he knows it’s probably ineffective with the bleach still on his head. Trevor’s sniggering from the couch now, the little shit, and when Aleks glares at him he barely stifles his laughter and shrugs his shoulders instead.

“What? He’s right. You look like a fucking idiot.”

At that, Aleks has half a mind to swipe some of the bleach out of his hair and just ram it right into Trevor’s beard, maybe get some of it on his eyebrows or something, but Trevor must see the look in his eyes because he immediately scoots away, puts a healthy distance between the two of them with a stern, albeit panicked, “ _Don’t_.” 

“What the fuck ever,” Aleks gripes, getting to his feet as his phone finally goes off. “I’m gonna go wash this shit out of my hair and then we can talk about fucking... _whatever_ it was you did today. God. You’re both such _assholes_.” 

The sound of more laughter follows him as he stalks out of the room, mostly because he’s salty about the fact that he can’t even care about his appearance without the two of them going after him. Sure, Brett can work his body into a mountain and Trevor can get stylish haircuts and wear shitty tourist shirts but the second Aleks takes goddamn care of his roots, _he’s_ the idiot. Whatever. Maybe he takes out some of his anger on stripping down and smacking the shower curtain out of his way as he climbs into the shower. 

He’s used to coldish showers by now, having been bleaching his hair for a year now, but that doesn’t stop him from hissing and jumping a bit out of the spray until he can get used to the chill. As the bleach starts to wash out he sighs, stands in the shower and lets his attention wander to the grout between the tiles, on the cracks that spider out like webs, the way that the droplets from the shower slide down the walls. 

Unbidden, his mind wanders back to Nova. 

The bags under his eyes had been so _vivid._ Aleks had never really been one for noticing details like that, but it was hard to ignore; the tired shade of purple had stood out even against Nova’s tanned skin, and when he had looked over at Aleks it had been with a wariness that Aleks can’t begin to imagine. He’d looked run down, exhausted, like there wasn’t a lot left of him, and while Aleks would like to pretend that he couldn’t give less of a fuck, he still - shit, he still wants to know what the fuck _happened._

Nova’s eyes were still that same shade of dark brown, though. Aleks remembers.

He spits out some water through tight lips and runs his hands through his hair, lifts his face to the spray and just lets the water beat against his closed eyes. He holds his breath and tries to just empty his mind, focus on the shower as water runs down his naked skin. He hates that Nova has such a hold on him even now - remembers, inexplicably, the first time they had met, when Nova had hogged the shower and Aleks had had to wash out his bloodstained hair in the sink. 

Aleks runs his hands through his hair over and over again, washing the bleach out and feeling the heavy splash of water and tries to soothe his heartbeat, if just a little. He feels almost like he’s on the verge of panic, for reasons he entirely can’t explain; all he knows is that alone in the bathroom, thinking of Nova’s sad, tired eyes, he’s filled with an anxiety that sends numbness to the tips of his fingers. Now that his mind’s on Nova, he can’t seem to stop _thinking_ of him - of how long his hair is now, and how curly. How much he clearly hated Aleks now, which was fine given that Aleks didn’t exactly want to be best friends with him either. 

But still. _Still._ That night. 

When they had - 

Aleks cups his hands and splashes water into his face, the bleach long since run down the drain. Now he’s just standing in water that’s too cold, pressing his hands hard to his face as he tries to pull himself together. He wants to tamper the anxiety down, as he always does at the worst of times, and he breathes slowly into his palms. It gusts out wetly, and he counts slowly, carefully. But Trevor’s words had really set that anxiety into overdrive, had made Aleks wonder just what exactly Nova’s plans were, if he was going to doublecross them, if Aleks trusting him on even the most basic level was going to get everyone he cared about _killed -_

He wants to believe Nova might be better than that, though he’s not sure why. But he just doesn’t _know_. 

For the first time in a long time, Aleks slowly turns his left hand over, stares at the tattoo on the inside of his wrist. Even within the swirls of blue and black and green, he can still see the letters clear as day that map out the name on his skin, something deeper than simple ink. Nova had betrayed him in this way, too, in an unforgivable way that Aleks carries with him as heavily as every kill he’s ever made. 

Aleks watches the water pool in the little dip his curled fingers make in his palm, and slowly tips his hand to the side until it all drains away. 

There are six of them, and one of Nova. They outnumber him. He’d be stupid to try.

That, at least, stiffens Aleks’ resolve enough that he shuts off the water, towels himself down and then rubs away the light layer of steam from the mirror, looks at his reflection briefly. His hair’s gone yellow at the roots, still in desperate need of toner, and it’s sticking straight up from the water, but already Aleks feels a little better about himself. He takes in the eagle on his chest, the sharks that are still only lined on his shoulder, takes in the way his skin’s cleared up a bit, the dark hair on his lip and chin and the underside of his jaw. There are bags under his eyes too, but more from lack of sleep than stress, and he tilts his head a little bit and watches his reflection do the same. 

Someone out there is still looking for him, looking for _this_ , and he’s not sure why.

He doesn’t know why he’s just looking at himself, either. Maybe it’s to try and find something there that isn’t - that isn’t _Aleks._ Maybe he’s looking for Sasha, or even Immortal, someone that he can turn himself into, someone he can be who isn’t the scared boy running from his life, running from everything he ever knew, all of that just to do it again. He slowly cards his fingers through his hair, stares into his own eyes, tries to just _see._

Who would ever want someone like him? _Why_ would anyone want someone like him? 

Standing naked and alone, with shitty two-toned hair that reminds him too much of Shay, Aleks realizes just how ridiculous he must look. It only takes a few seconds more before he scoffs in disgust, wipes at the mirror with still-wet hands to smear his reflection. 

“God. Shut the fuck up, you depressed-ass fuckin’ bitch,” he mutters at himself angrily, and turns to look for his towel. “Jesus Christ.” 

He manages to waddle back to his room buck-ass naked with only his towel to spare his modesty, his old clothes tucked underneath his arm, and he can hear Trevor and Brett talking in the living room. They seem to be talking in hushed voices about something that Aleks can’t quite make out, and Aleks is a little startled. He hadn’t expected the two of them to get on so quickly; he would’ve thought Brett would’ve found Trevor too annoying, or even the other way around. 

When he makes his way back into the living room, freshly dressed, he finds that Brett’s made himself comfortable on the couch, one huge arm stretched out over the back. Trevor’s done his usual bit of making himself much smaller than he really is, but Aleks gets the feeling that it’s less about nerves and more about simply situating himself on the couch. They both look over at him and Trevor immediately shifts forward again, leaning towards the edge of the cushion. 

“You know, you two are getting along better than I expected,” Aleks admits as he sits back down in front of him, and Trevor reaches for the bottle of toner. “Thought you were fuckin’ annoyed at him, Hundy.” 

“Don’t,” Brett says with warning in his voice, “call me that.”

Aleks grins up at him, and he can hear Trevor choke on a laugh as he sets to work adding in the toner. 

“You know you love me.” 

Brett grunts. 

“Sometimes you make me wonder,” he mutters, and the couch shifts as Brett leans back, spreads out his knees and rests both arms on the back of the couch. He rocks the one leg back and forth while the other two are quiet, and as Sonic jumps up on the couch one hand comes back down to start scratching her behind the ears. She seems to have taken a shine to him, since she starts purring instantly and settles down between his legs, nuzzling into his palm whenever he stops petting her for too long. 

“So,” Aleks finally says into the silence, “what was that about a home base?” 

He doesn’t have to turn around to know that Brett’s grinning again, something charming and yet with that hint of danger that’s always present around him. He settles into the couch again, running his big hand up Sonic’s back and all the way to the tip of her tail before starting again. 

“Oh, don’t worry,” he says, and he sounds smug, “you just get your phone out and text whoever else is joining us on this fucked up heist. I’ve got an address that we can all meet up at this week, whenever people are free.” 

As Trevor’s careful fingers card through his hair again, Aleks pulls out his phone and starts filling in contact names. He already knows who he wants, and two of them are right here with him - but he stops, thumb hovering over Nova’s name. All the doubts from before flood back to the surface, and Aleks tries to ignore the way his heartbeat picks up as he stares at those four letters, the black and white of the decision right there in front of his eyes. 

No backing out now, he thinks, and presses it. It lights up alongside the other names, and Aleks takes a deep breath and switches to type out the message itself. 

“Alright,” he says, and leans his back against the couch, the four names in his phone the last piece of the puzzle they’ve barely begun to construct. “Hit me with it.” 

-

He’s more nervous than he expects himself to be. Aleks always stands in front of the mirror before he goes out; it’s a vain thing, probably, but he also just likes to make an impression, likes to look good, and right now he most certainly does. His hair’s freshly dyed and shaved on the sides, he’s got a totally black outfit on, and - well, at least to his eyes, he looks like someone who could run a crew. Or at the very least, someone who can pull off a high-stakes heist. Mishka’s sitting on his bed half-dozing, her head rested on her paws, and her doleful eyes follow his movements.

Aleks slips his Ray-Bans on and, in the privacy of his own goddamn bedroom, throws two finger guns at his reflection with a winning grin.

“...yeah, okay,” he says to Mishka after a long pause. She lifts her head and wags her tail happily as he pushes the sunglasses up onto his forehead. “That looked as fuckin’ stupid as I thought it would.” 

Trevor’s stretched out on the couch when Aleks makes his way into the living room, his long legs thrown over the arm of the couch and his phone in his hands. Sonic’s on his stomach again, with Celia camped out underneath the bend of his knees, and Aleks can’t help the small smile as Mishka trots up behind him. 

“Ready to go?” 

“Yeah...” Trevor says without looking up. He’s wearing all black too, and it makes him look bigger somehow, leaner, more length to him when he’s already got such a huge frame. “Hundar said he’s gonna meet us at the - the warehouse or whatever, so we can just go ahead whenever.”

“You guys get on pretty well,” Aleks notes as he clicks his tongue at Mishka, gestures at her to follow as he walks towards the other side of the room. It’s barely midday, and Aleks pokes his head out the window as far as he can, squints suspiciously up at the sky before he slips the screen down and tries to coax Mishka into her crate. She goes willingly enough, though she casts big sad brown eyes up at him that he has to pet away before he locks it. 

Trevor shrugs from the couch.

“Yeah, man,” he replies, sounding distracted as he types. “He seemed really chill. I like him.”

Aleks, who has personally watched Brett smash multiple men’s heads in with a tasteful variety of blunt weapons, snorts and stands up again. 

“Yeah, he’d love it if you told him that,” he says dryly, taking off his sunglasses to run a hand through his hair, tries to get it to stand up a little bit more with the product he’d slathered on before getting dressed. It looks charmingly tousled, or at least he hopes it does, and he leans over Trevor’s face as he clasps the glasses to his shirt collar instead. “You hype yet?” 

Trevor stares up at him with bored, lidded eyes.

“Oh, totally.” 

Aleks scoffs at him, muses up his hair as he walks away again and picks his keys up off the ring by the door.

“Come on, nerd,” he says, and jangles them a little in Trevor’s direction. Trevor just glowers at him, both hands trying to smooth his hair back down. “We’ve got a fuckin’ warehouse to check out.” 

He’s still got his old shit car from a million years ago, hasn’t been able to upgrade to a nice car like he desperately wants, but it’s still like a second home to him, with dog _and_ cat hair all over the black seats no matter how hard he tries to lint roll the mess away, and Trevor dutifully in the passenger seat. He’s leaning on his hand and staring absently out the window, the wind blowing through his hair as they drive, and Aleks waits until they’re at a red light before he starts talking again. 

“What’re you thinking?” 

Trevor lets out a low breath through his nose, blinking slowly. 

“Dunno,” he admits, taps his fingers against the door. “I guess we’re gonna have to see. I haven’t met half these people, you know? Kinda nervous.”

“Nah,” Aleks says, knowing how Trevor gets sometimes. “They’re pretty good people, easy to get along with. I bet you’ll like Dynamite, he’s a fuckin’ meme like you.”

“ _Hey_.” 

The rest of the car ride is like that - a little lighter, a little bit more laughter in the air as Aleks follows the GPS on his phone to the address Brett had given him. He’d sent it out in a group text, gotten four simple yet positive replies; none of them seemed to be very put-off by the unknown numbers that came up when he’d texted them, but he’d bet his life that not a single one of them will come unarmed. 

“Here,” Trevor says, sitting up in his seat and pointing out the windshield; Aleks squints as he leans forward, tries to make out the building that’s nothing but a silhouette against the midday sun. From what he can see it looks like a warehouse, just as Brett had described, with a flat roof and surrounded on all sides by other buildings built around it. Aleks blinks up at it a bit and exchanges a look with Trevor, who purses his lips into something like an impressed face. They both shrug and Aleks finds a place to park. 

Upon closer inspection as they walk up towards the front gate, it’s clear that the warehouse is empty, but not necessarily abandoned. It looks like it’s been kept up admirably for how little it seems to be used; but it’s in an okay part of town, maybe a little less rundown than where Aleks and Trevor live but nonetheless sturdy enough. Aleks peeks through the gate and takes in the big garage door, the weeds that grow up around the tan bricks that make up its walls, the trees that grow on one side of the gate.

“Not bad,” he muses thoughtfully, fingers loosely hooked into the gate as he looks it up and down. “That could work.” 

“We were thinking it looked pretty good too,” a familiar voice says, along with the rustle of branches, and Aleks immediately whirls around as two people touch down lightly onto the pavement. At the sight of the newcomers, though, his face breaks out into a grin. Anna continues, her eyes shining happily as Asher beams from over her shoulder. “But of course, we’re kind of in the dark right now, aren’t we?” 

“You fuckin’ fucks,” Aleks says excitedly, and immediately pulls them both into a hug. “What’re you sneaking up on me for?” 

They look good, is Aleks’ first reaction. Radiant as always, with Anna’s long hair braided and tossed over her shoulders, and Asher’s handsome face damn near split at the seams from his grin. They look almost exactly the same as when they had all first met - maybe Asher’s a little broader around the shoulders and softer in the stomach, and maybe Anna looks a bit more tired, a bit more tan, but they both look delighted to see him, and it shows in their twin smiles.

“We’ve been hiding,” Asher says cheerfully, a little breathless from the force of Aleks’ arms squeezing them both just a hair too tightly. But he can’t help it - he’d missed them more than he thought he did. “You know, making sure there’s not, like, an ambush or something, or a kidnapping, or a drive-by shooting -” 

“What he means,” Anna cuts in delicately, pointedly, “is that we’re glad to see you too. But you can never be too careful.”

“Right, exactly.” Asher nods fervently. “And sometimes that requires climbing trees.” 

Aleks snorts as he lets them go, takes both of them in for a second before he shakes his head. Leave it to the only cat burglars he knows to go as far as hide in a tree to avoid getting shot at. From behind him, Trevor clears his throat a little pointedly and Aleks immediately introduces everyone to each other - it’s amicable even with the codenames, as he knew it would be, and he instantly sees the rapport forming when Trevor and Asher shake hands. 

“Who else is coming?” Asher asks curiously, the four of them standing in a tight circle as other people walk past. They all look unassuming, mostly just a group of kids meeting up to discuss their afternoon plans.

“Two more, and then there’s a guy I used to work with.” Aleks ticks them off on his fingers as he speaks. “That’s all, though.” 

“And we’re going to get more info then?” Anna asks, that clever glint in her eyes. “About why we’re here, I mean. I trust you, Immortal, but that was a pretty random text to get. We haven’t seen you in like...”

“Six months,” Asher says instantly, and she nods. 

“Six months.” 

Aleks grins in a way that he hopes is just a little dangerous.

“Oh, don’t worry. You guys are gonna like it.” 

That seems to do the job well enough; they both exchange a look with each other and something passes between their eyes before they nod. It’s the communication of two people who don’t need to speak, and Aleks envies it in a way he can’t describe. A part of him is always going to long for that - for a person he can just lock eyes with and simply _know_ what the other is thinking, but he shoves those thoughts down with the rest of them and just tries to grin.

Before he can explain anything else, though, he sees a familiar yellow car pulling up on the opposite side of the road, and then all expectations fly out the window as goddamn Brett gets out the passenger side of _Lindsey’s_ car. He looks enormous next to the tiny little box Lindsey drives, and for a second Aleks wonders if he’s mistaken - but then Lindsey herself gets out too, her sunglasses round and sparkling in the sunlight.

“Jesus, you’re here early,” Brett says, sounding impressed as he jogs across the street. “I’m used to having to wait at least ten minutes for your lazy ass.” 

Aleks wants to have some kind of witty response, but he just gapes as Lindsey grins at him, eyebrows going up above the rim of her sunglasses as she looks Aleks over once. She’s dressed fashionably, the picture of the put-together mom friend that Aleks knows hides the fucking _insane_ joyrider. Her hair is freshly dyed like his, and sure enough she clicks her tongue appreciatively.

“Blond,” she says, nodding. “I like it. Where’s my hug, huh?” 

The spell broken, Aleks immediately gathers her up in a hug hard enough to get her to squeak before she gives it back as good as she gets. She seems incredibly pleased by both his shock and his embrace, and when he pulls away she raises her sunglasses, eyes him critically.

“You look good,” she decides on after a moment. “Feel good?”

“Feel alright,” he replies, and gestures at a smug-looking Brett. “You know him?” 

Lindsey pulls a face, looking over her shoulder at the mountain of a man standing behind her. She doesn’t look intimidated, or even really small next to him somehow - instead she looks a little unimpressed. 

“This guy?” she asks, jabs a thumb backwards at his chest. “I’ve known him since our early days of heisting, he’s gotten my ass out of more problems than I’m going to admit. It’s bad for his ego when you admit he’s nice to have around,” she adds in a fake conspiratorial tone, and Brett frowns a little bit but doesn’t comment otherwise. 

Aleks is... startled, is a good word for it, but mostly he’s just stunned silent. All these years of knowing both of them - five goddamn years he’s known Brett, for fuck’s sake - and somehow he never knew they ran together? The fuck. But the body language between the two of them is clear, and Aleks is grateful more than ever that he called on the both of them for this heist. If they work well together, that gives them an extra advantage he hadn’t considered.

“So,” Lindsey says, hands on her hips as she gives Trevor a once-over. “Who’s this?” 

Trevor gives her a shy little grin, looking awkward with his height. 

“Uh. Modest.” 

“Adorable,” she replies instantly, and it’s clear she means it. “I love you already. Linzbot,” she adds, holding out her hand first to Trevor, then Asher, and then Anna last as they exchange codenames too. Anna and Lindsey both share a look, the only women in a gaggle of men, and Aleks knows that’s what it is because he sees them both nod at each other solemnly. God. “And Mountain Man over there is Hundar. Don’t let him be all big and mean and scary, he’s really just a teddy bear.” 

Brett sighs wearily, but again doesn’t comment. 

“So what exactly are we waiting on?” Lindsey asks, arms crossed. She’s taken control of the situation well enough, and Aleks is grateful for her.

“Well,” he says, hesitates for a moment. “I guess we’re waiting on one more, but - fuckin’ really, I don’t care if we start without him. Guess it’s up to Hundar.” 

Holding up his hands a bit, Brett just shakes his head. “I don’t have the key,” he says, everyone’s eyes on him. “I just asked my guy if he had a place a new crew could work out of - he said he had the perfect thing, and that he’d meet us right around now.”

As if on cue, there’s a loud call from the corner, and everyone turns as one to find someone walking towards them with proud, purposeful strides - Aleks only needs to get a glimpse of the cloud of fluffy black hair to know immediately who it is, and now that he knows he wonders how he could’ve ever been so clueless. Mostly he’s just torn between groaning and laughing loudly. 

“Hello, boys~!” the newcomer trills happily, and Aleks settles for groaning. “Happy to see everyone in good spirits!” 

“Really?” he asks, and Brett grins knowingly at him. “ _Joel Rubin_? _That’s_ your fuckin’ guy?” 

“Of course,” Brett says simply, and watches as Lindsey immediately races forward to throw her arms around Joel’s shoulders, the two of them spinning around excitedly on the sidewalk. He seems very, very pleased with himself. “Who else would it be?” 

A fair question, though Aleks is loathe to admit it. He’s never worked personally with Joel, one of the founders of Fakehaus and a smooth-talking thief with a penchant for poisoning anyone who’s pissed him off. Most importantly, he’s the only person Aleks has ever seen who can handle Brett’s questionable sense of humor without so much as breaking a sweat. They’ve met enough times that Aleks has a decent idea of how Joel operates, and he knows that if they’re getting a warehouse from him, it won’t be half-assed. No wonder the place looks so good. 

“The man of the hour,” Joel says to Brett as soon as he gets close enough, and Aleks watches with no small amount of disbelief as Joel kisses Brett’s cheek, one arm still wrapped around Lindsey’s shoulders. “Or, well, at least one of them. How are we this morning, hmm?” 

“Doing pretty okay, actually,” Brett says, grinning widely; Aleks can see Trevor looking a bit startled. “Got almost the whole crew here, we’re just waiting on one more.” 

“Mm, good. And my, what a crew this is,” Joel says with interest, glancing around at all of them. Aleks can tell that he’s sizing everyone up, his dark eyes flicking between the four of them with a critical eye. “Anyone new here?” 

They all trade glances, but with enough notches on their belts, they shake their heads. Aleks knows he and Trevor can at the very least give Fakehaus a run for _some_ of their money, and he knows enough about Anna and Asher’s exploits to know that they’re far from inexperienced. They all just stand there, silent and unassuming, and the lack of answers must be answer enough, because Joel gives them a dazzling smile. 

“Good,” he says, and Aleks catches that flash in his eyes that says that he’s not all he seems. “Wouldn’t want to send newbies out into such a dangerous game. Wouldn’t be very fair.” He claps his hands together once, rocking on the balls of his feet as he looks between everyone. “Who are we waiting on?” 

Everyone looks over at Aleks expectantly, who sighs and scratches at his nape, but he’s barely opened his mouth to answer when he’s interrupted. 

“Me.” 

It’s instantaneous; Aleks feels like his heart stops in his chest, breath immediately catching in his throat before he turns around. He doesn’t know why he has such a reaction, but as soon as everyone’s looking the same way, he lets the breath out. 

Nova’s simply standing there, hands in his pockets and eyes as tired as they had looked the last time Aleks saw him. He’s wearing all black, including a hoodie that covers the bright tattoos on his forearms, and he’s shoved his hands in his pockets like he’s almost too bored to be there. It looks almost like he wandered over by accident, but there’s something confident about the way he holds himself. Still, there’s no excited greeting or even recognition from anyone besides Aleks and Trevor, and they all look between him and Aleks as if that would somehow answer their questions.

“Sorry I’m a little late,” Nova continues, like it’s no big thing that everyone is looking at him with a bit of confusion. He doesn’t seem very perturbed by it. “There was bad traffic, I got a little stuck in it.” When there’s no answer to that either, he sighs. “Anyway, I’m Nova. I don’t know how far we got into the explanations, so…” 

“Not far at all,” Aleks says, and Nova’s eyebrows lift a little.

“Oh. Well good, I guess. Saves time.” He turns his head, and Aleks hates how nonchalant he seems, how it’s like he doesn’t even care that they’re trying to start a crew to rob one of the biggest goddamn casinos in Los Santos. Aleks wants to be angry, but he forces himself to keep it down. “I’m kinda like... co-leader. This is the place you mentioned?” 

“Yes,” Aleks says through his teeth, and Anna at least must pick up on the hostility, because she gives Aleks a quizzical look, which he ignores. “Joel was gonna show us the inside.”

“Is that right?” Nova asks, squinting in the sun with one eye closed. It looks like, at the very least, he’s trimmed his beard into something much tidier, and his bun’s a bit neater than it had been the other day. He looks a bit more bit together, like he’d had time to do so. “Well, I’m really sorry to keep you waiting. Go right ahead, don’t wait up for me or nothing.”

Joel hums a bit thoughtfully, tapping his chin like he wants to comment on that, but instead he simply takes a keyring out of his pocket and gets to work unlocking the gate. Aleks is steadfast in ignoring Nova, who seems content with that and merely looks around a bit interestedly before he politely introduces himself to Asher and Anna, then Lindsey. He seems like he’s behaving himself.

“Modest,” he says when he gets to Trevor, and sounds a bit surprised. “Long time no see, newbie. You lose weight?” 

Trevor nods, but doesn’t say anything otherwise. He looks a bit surprised that Nova would even notice.

“You look good,” Nova says thoughtfully, hands still in his pockets as he looks Trevor up and down. “Damn, kid.” 

Aleks can see Trevor’s cheeks going a little pink at the compliment, and he has half a second to try and project the word _TRAITOR_ into Trevor’s brainbefore Joel finally unlocks the gate and pulls it open, the loud clanging enough to distract Aleks into looking back towards the front.

“This isn’t actually _really_ my warehouse,” Joel explains as he leads them into a spacious parking lot. There’s room enough for each of them to park a car with a space or two left over, and Aleks keeps that in mind as he searches for a place to put a camera - just in case. “This is actually my husband’s - but to be quite frank, he probably doesn’t even remember that he has it, since it was some kind of location for a drug cartel before he got them all busted... which reminds me, if there’s some product left over you might want to let me know.” At the little titter of giggling, Joel’s smile widens almost imperceptibly. “Mm, that wasn’t a joke. Anyway - ”

“Not bad,” Nova mutters next to him while Joel is still talking, and Aleks manages to staunch the startled jump and instead glares at him with as much vitriol as he can muster. He hopes the hate comes through.

“Oh, you’re talking to me now?” he asks sourly, and Nova looks at him out of the corner of his eye. He seems incredibly unbothered by Aleks’ attempts to set him on fire with his eyes alone.

“If we’re going to run a crew together, then yeah,” he says, clipped and without nuance. “I gotta talk to you, don’t I?” 

“Didn’t seem as fuckin’ - as fuckin’ keen on the idea last time,” Aleks accuses, but Nova just snorts.

“Nice SAT word, blondie.”

Aleks bristles immediately.

“Oh, fuck you, _god -_ ”

Nova rolls his eyes.

“Don’t threaten _me_ with a good time -”

“ _Bitch_ -” 

“Boys,” Brett interrupts, and Aleks looks to see that everyone is staring at them. Trevor’s eyebrows are raised, and he’s looking so pointedly at Aleks that Aleks can’t help but feel a bit of shame bubbling in his gut. From next to him, Nova’s face has gone from carefully neutral to almost angry, but it’s nothing compared to the confusion on everyone’s expressions. Aleks realizes, quite belatedly, that the both of them have become the center of attention, and Brett’s tone says that more than anything else. “Save the lover’s spat for after the tour, yeah?” 

“He’s not my fucking lover!” Aleks snaps automatically, going scarlet, and there’s a part of him that immediately regrets the childish response. He should be better, especially if they’re about to run a crew in the most dangerous heists any of them have ever seen, but the rest of him just wants to make sure the crew knows how much he hates Nova and wants him gone as soon as possible. 

Nova’s mouth tightens, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Well, whatever,” Brett says, sounding exasperated. “Can you just fucking wait until after Joel shows us the place to start arguing, then? Sound like a compromise?”

“Yes,” Aleks says through gritted teeth, feeling appropriately ashamed, and when everyone turns back around, he hisses, “just fucking - let’s just keep this professional and then you can ditch us when you’re all done.” 

“I have plans to,” Nova replies, jaw still tight. He’s not really looking at Aleks anymore.

Aleks ignores him after that while Joel shows them the inside of the warehouse. It’s better than he had expected. It’s spacious, with high ceilings that have slats of wooden beams running across to the other side, and vents to keep the place cool and well ventilated. There’s a front room, and something that could easily be repurposed into an office. It’s even got a place for a fridge and a small kitchen set, if they’re so inclined. There’s a lot that they could all work with, and if they want to keep the crew after the Grand Central heist, it wouldn’t be that hard at all. 

“You’re sure this is okay?” Brett asks when they’re halfway back to the door, and Joel tsks, flapping a hand in Brett’s face.

“Oh please, like you actually care if it’s okay,” he says dismissively, and Brett wrinkles his nose. “I honestly think Lawrence forgot he has this place. It’s not like we _use_ it, we just moved buildings againto accommodate all of us, and if we needed this place it would’ve come up. Besides, it’ll be nice to _finally_ not owe you any more goddamn favors.” 

Aleks can see Brett switch moods real quick and start preening a little at that, and he rolls his eyes. 

“Well, we appreciate it,” Nova says, arms crossed. He sounds sincerely grateful, which is a little startling. “It’s gonna make things a lot easier for sure, having a place to work out of.”

“Of course,” Joel says after a moment, and he looks a little surprised by the admission from someone who had previously been a little distant, if not rude. But he pulls himself together admirably, throws an arm around Lindsey’s shoulders to pull her in close while she grins. “I gotta look out for my girl, if nothing else. And anyway, I remember what it was like back in the day, when you’re fresh to the game as a team. Gotta watch out for you kids. I want to see your names in the papers one day.”

Asher, who’s been oddly quiet up until this point, just grins.

“You will,” he says simply, and Anna nods her head. 

“ _Love_ it,” Joel says, and it’s clear he means it by the way he winks at them, swaying a little with Lindsey in one arm. “I have a feeling I’m really going to enjoy you guys.” 

He leaves a little after that, talking in low voices with Brett and Lindsey in the corner while everyone else explores the warehouse thoughtfully. There’s a ladder that leads up to another roof inside above three sets of bathrooms, one that Asher and Anna immediately examine and climb like cats on a brand new cat tree. It’s spacious, and if they work with it Aleks has no doubt that they could turn this into a temporary living space for late nights if they really wanted.

After a bit of experimenting Trevor figures out how to open the garage door. It groans and creaks ominously, but he pulls at the chain and tugs it open, lets sunlight flood in and illuminate the concrete floors. Dust specks glow in the light, but there’s something in the air that’s charged in a different way, something that the two of them share as they stand there in the now-open wall.

“Damn,” Aleks says quietly, and Trevor hums, still hanging off the chain, his cheek resting against his own shoulder.

“Yeah,” he replies simply. They stand there for a moment, the two of them, and if Aleks looks hard enough, he can see the city on the distant horizon. The buildings are just tall dots wavering in the heat of Los Santos, and cars zoom by as they both stare. The heat is blistering, even in fall, and Aleks pretends he can almost see the Grand Central Casino looming in the distance. Soon, Asher and Anna join them, and then Brett and Lindsey come over to see Joel off.

“Break a leg,” he says cheerfully as he leaves, and while it’s with good intentions, Aleks can hear the challenge underneath. Fakehaus, after all, is not a group to be fucked with. “We’ll be in touch, I’m sure.”

After that, there’s silence save for the sounds from outside. The garage door is still open, and slowly Nova makes his way over too. He doesn’t say anything, still stands there with his hands in his hoodie pockets, but there’s something different about him that Aleks can’t quite place. They all just stand there, and then Asher speaks into the quiet.

“So,” he says, sounds curious. “We’re here. We’ve got a warehouse. What exactly are we doing here?”

Aleks looks over at Nova, who simply raises his eyebrows at him and nods a little. Aleks can tell that Nova wants him to do the talking. He frowns at him, but looks back at the rest of their crew. The reality of it hits him suddenly.

Their _crew_.

Aleks didn’t think he would ever find himself here again. After the Creatures, even _before_ the Creatures, he’d sworn off crews. He had always preferred to work alone. Trevor had always been the exception to the rule, simply because he’s an exception in just about every aspect of Aleks’ life in the States. Aleks hates crews by default, because they tie him down, give him something to care about. It’s not something he wants to go through again. 

But everyone looks at him expectantly, and Aleks barely notices that with the way everyone is standing, it puts him and Nova front and center. Nova, who pulls up his hoodie sleeves, and Aleks’ eyes zero in on the beads around his wrist. Nova just looks over at him, nods his head again, and Aleks puts aside his grudge if only for a moment to address the rest of them.

“Well,” he says slowly, like he’s thinking, “you guys know the Grand Central Casino, right?” 

When he gets affirming nods, he can’t help but grin at them, at their _crew._ They all look interested, even Trevor and Brett, who already know the plan. Aleks puffs himself up just a little, lifts his chin enough to give himself something of an imposing air. Tattooed and platinum blond, he hopes he at least looks a little badass.

“We’re gonna rob it fuckin’ blind,” he says, and Nova huffs a private little laugh. “And then we’re gonna burn the motherfucker to the ground.”

They stand together, the two of them, and Aleks feels for one moment like it might feel normal. It feels like it’s right, and in that moment Aleks doesn’t have the strength to quell it. Everyone stares at them, and the silence that follows is finally broken by Asher’s quietly gleeful response.

“ _Excellent._ ” 

In the emptiness of their new warehouse, just their small little group, it feels almost like camaraderie as they all immediately start talking, immediately start asking for specifics - it’s the start of something new, something vicious. Aleks doesn’t see anyone looking like they want to back out, no second thoughts from Trevor and Brett as Aleks starts to hash out the details. What Geoff wants from them, why he wants it, what they’re going to have to start doing to accomplish it. Aleks feels it in his chest, and from next to him, Trevor shifts excitedly. It’s just them now, people from entirely different worlds coming together.

Aleks doesn’t have a word to put to it, this odd feeling growing between the spaces in his ribs, but he thinks he might like it. 

“So,” Nova says, when the talk’s died down - the seven of them standing in a semi-circle in the light from outside, their shadows cast long and dark against the floor. His voice echoes against the walls as he talks. “I’m thinking we could use some furniture in here if we’re gonna do this.” He’s thoughtful as they all look at him. “I’m thinking maybe a couch. Like a real _ugly_ fuckin’ couch.”

Into the laughter that follows, Aleks can almost forget. He can almost pretend he wants this exactly how it is. But then Nova steps away from him, just a little, and he remembers again. 

_Whatever,_ he thinks, and sets his jaw. They’ve got a heist to plan. 


	4. the agreement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now here... here's where things are going to start getting interesting. sort of a slow chapter in some regards, but things are maybe looking up... at least a little.
> 
> thank you AS ALWAYS to robin for the beta and hannah and jackie for reading everything over! they are my favorite trio of people who look over all this to make sure it's actually intelligible and worth reading while i lay down and cry :D
> 
> ANYHOO come on over to [tumblr](http://myriadus.tumblr.com), we (try to) have fun there!
> 
>  **chapter warnings:** brief anxiety attack, mentions of insomnia and anxiety

Aleks is used to things never going according to plan. It’s sort of a reigning theme in his life, really.

His tattoo artist, for example, had shot him down pretty much the second he’d expressed the desire to cover up his mark. Aleks had… he’d assumed that would happen, really. It didn’t seem like a viable option anyway, or else more people would have done it. Or at least, he figured so. Maybe most people weren’t actively _trying._

“Best I can do is work around it, kid,” the guy had said - a real beefy dude with a big beard, the picture perfect example of a tattoo artist on the wrong side of Los Santos. But he did real nice work, and he was kind underneath the hard exterior. Maybe he’d seen the vulnerability in him that Aleks tried hard to squash down after the fight with Nova, or maybe he simply thought a weird kid with a vague accent needed a way to look more intimidating. “I can make it look good, but you’re still gonna be able to see it. Can’t cover it up.”

“How close to covered up can you get it?” 

He got a sigh for that one.

“Pretty damn close,” the guy said, and raised an eyebrow. “You sure you want that?” 

“How much?” Aleks asked as an answer. He was already planning how he was going to start paying for it, didn’t care what it took. He had a few hundred saved up from past runs, an emergency fund that he was ready to blow sky high. He’d been planning on using it if he needed a way out of Los Santos in a tight spot, but now it doesn’t matter. He’ll use it all if it means that for one moment, he gets to feel in control of himself, in control of his fate or his destiny or whatever anyone wants to call it. _He_ decides what the name on his wrist means, _he_ decides who gets to see it, and no one else can take that from him anymore. 

The guy sighed again, rubbed at his beard for a moment or two before he went to go get some sketch paper. From there it had been a matter of working out the base design, the theme, how the letters were going to be integrated into the ink around it, before they finally settled on a price. 

Aleks looks at his arm now, laying in bed with Celia curled up on top of his shins. The blue neon light filtering in from the night through his window gives him just enough light to look over the design, to take in the dark swirls of color that made up the depths of the ocean, trails of seaweed and the sealife permanently painted into his skin. If asked, Aleks supposes he’d say he chose the theme is simply because it’s cool and looks badass, knowing better than to tap into the _real_ reason in casual conversation. The ocean is vast, and there are as many places to hide there as there is in space - the pattern on his other arm. Two cold, unforgiving expanses, unexplored and endless. The thought of it and the image of it on his skin makes something settle somewhere in his head, yet at the same time it makes something start itching somewhere else. 

He sighs and throws both arms over his eyes, chest expanding all the way before he lets the breath out slowly. It’s just… one of those nights. He knows them well by now, but that doesn’t make the irritation in his gut go away.

For a while, Aleks just sits there and tries to keep his eyes closed, tries every trick in the book to get himself to fall asleep. He counts sheep, he presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and counts backwards, he even tries to lay on his side and concentrate on his breathing - much to Celia’s disdain - but after a fruitless hour of that, he growls a little in frustration and gives up. After that he just goes back to staring at the ceiling, his fingers woven into his hair. They’re supposed to meet Brett at the warehouse in the morning to discuss how they’re going to start planning out this thing, and Aleks _knows_ he should sleep. But he just can’t seem to.

“Fuck,” he says quietly, and Celia sleepily lifts her head with a soft purr. “Ah, shit, man. Fuck.” 

It’s not the first time he’s had issues with falling asleep before, and he wants to scream at the top of his lungs just to get some of the tension in his chest out. It’s anxiety that’s keeping him awake, it’s a feral fear that’s lodged in his chest and doing its damndest to claw up his throat. Logically he knows he’s safe, at least for now, but there’s a part of his brain conditioned from years of running and fighting that still says someone will come after them, that someone will kill them, something wants them and it’ll do anything to get to them. It’s the same anxiety that he feels towards the very idea inked into his arms - that never-ending, overwhelming magnitude of everything he doesn’t know. 

His fingers tighten a little in his hair, and from somewhere distantly a car alarm goes off without warning.

Aleks jumps a little at the sound, breath catching before he can chastise himself for it. He’s wired, and he _has_ been wired despite his best attempts to calm down over the last few days. He’d kept it at bay, for the most part, but Aleks isn’t always the best at keeping his heart off his sleeve and now that he’s got nothing else to distract him he can’t seem to stop _thinking._ God, now that he’s been actually forced to confront _him_ again, and talk to him, and work with him, and just _acknowledge him_ at all - 

He pulls his forearms against each other and groans into his own skin, heart hammering in his chest. He wants to go back to the days where he didn’t think about it at all, when the Hub was a distant memory and Aleks floated between lowkey jobs that brought in a couple hundred and simply doing nothing at all. When he and Trevor would just sit on the couch and giggle about whatever dumb movie they found on Netflix. Better than the Hub, better than the Creatures, better than - 

A trash can slams outside, and then the scatter of startled birds casting shadows as they fly by in a panic, and Aleks breathes in deep and slow.

There are cars down below, too, driving by and almost too loud, and in the distance police sirens that fade away into the rest of the city noises. It reminds Aleks too much of how his life used to be. Running and running and running, trying to hide in plain sight and always barely succeeding. It matches the feeling in his chest; just anxiety, over and over again, working against him no matter how hard he tries. He watches the slivers of light from his blinds as they stretch across the ceiling, watches how they shudder as the cars race by on usually crowded roads. After a minute he counts them too, counts each long line across the faded paint and wishes that he could do something to just _shut down_ for a night. 

They had been friends once. For however short a time, Aleks had genuinely looked forward to spending any amount of time with Nova, looked forward to going on heists with him and seeing the way his tanned skin glowed in the setting sun, the way his eyes shone with mischief when he looked over at Aleks. Aleks had - he’d fallen in love, maybe, just a little bit. And in the dead of night, with nothing to keep him from dwelling on it anymore, no distractions left to cling to, Aleks just… remembers. 

He reminds himself that _friends_ is a loose term. Maybe they had been more than friends, though that’s long in the past now. It’s not anything Aleks has thought of for a while, but now that he’s here, he’s just… He’s not sure, and a part of him wants to know how Nova saw it. If every time he looked at Aleks like that, he had been seeing something more, had _wanted_ something more. Aleks had, after all, seen it as a beginning, the start of something between - 

He grits his teeth.

Between _soulmates_. God, he’d been so fucking stupid. He wants to turn over onto his side and stare out the window, but Celia’s made herself comfortable pressed up against his stomach and so he stays on his back, slowly takes his hands away from his hair and instead folds them up under his head. He’s got a popcorn ceiling, and he traces the texture of it with his eyes. 

He’s fucking tired. He wants to _sleep._

There had been one time he and Nova had run as far as they could after a heist, gunshots still ringing loud in their ears - Aleks had followed Nova close enough that he was damn near stepping on his heels, until they got to one of their burner apartments and clambered up the stairs. Aleks remembers almost floating, remembers the happiness that made him feel like one step could carry him off in the wind, light as a feather. They had both leaned against the door, laughing breathlessly and Nova had looked over at him and he’d asked, “How’s it going?” 

“Good,” Aleks had answered, and he remembers how the single word had still rolled thick and accented off his tongue, when he was still new to this country, when adrenaline brought it back out, and Nova had beamed like he always did. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” Nova had said, wiggling his eyebrows, and Aleks had laughed at him. Had really laughed with nothing but delight, had tilted his head back and giggled and relished in the warmth of the body next to him. 

An idiot. That’s what he was. What he still is, really. 

It only takes a little longer before he finally sighs and sits up. Celia makes an upset little noise and jumps off the bed, her tail in the air as she carefully nudges open his cracked door and slips out. It’s clear she’s sick of his shit, and he can’t really blame her for it. He is, too. 

He ruffles furiously at his own hair until it sticks straight up, sighs into the darkness of his bedroom as his blankets pool in his lap. Fuck. He’s not getting to sleep tonight. He looks over at the flickers of light coming in through his door from the gap Celia left, realizes them for what they are and sniffs a bit thickly before he swings his feet over the side of the mattress.

Trevor’s curled up on the couch when Aleks makes his way into the living room, glasses on and hugging a pillow up against his chest. Sonic and Celia are curled together in a big pile of fur next to him, and Mishka raises her head excitedly at the sound of Aleks walking up. Trevor must’ve let her out, then. 

He looks as tired as Aleks feels, his cheek smushed up against the pillow while the reflection of the TV skitters across his lenses. Aleks glances over at the TV, sees he’s watching some fucking anime, the one about the brother with the metal arm, and the suit of armor. Brett’s talked about it before. He doesn’t look over as Aleks sits down next to him, but Aleks can tell that he’s comforted by it somehow anyway.

“Can’t sleep?” Aleks asks quietly, and Trevor shrugs a little.

“Neither can you,” he says simply. 

Aleks sniffs again. 

“Wanna talk about it?” 

Trevor’s quiet for a moment, nuzzles a little into the pillow and sighs. He looks exhausted.

“Same thing as always,” he says, soft. 

Yeah. Aleks feels that. 

It’s a good distraction, keeps Aleks’ thoughts on anything but trying to keep up with a plot he knows nothing about. They sit there for what must be hours, quietly watching anime in the dark with the girls curled up on the couch next to them, until Aleks looks over and finds that Trevor’s finally fallen asleep. His breathing is even and calm, long eyelashes fluttering as he snores gently into the pillow still clutched in his arms. 

Aleks looks down, watches as Sonic lifts her head off Celia’s back and looks over at him with her big, sleepy yellow eyes before blinking slowly. It makes Aleks smile a little bit, and he reaches out and runs his thumb down her nose until she purrs. After that he reaches out and gently eases Trevor’s glasses off his nose, folds them up and sets them on the coffee table before he sits back on the couch. 

The sun’s starting to come up, casting pale yellow and blue light across the buildings around them, and Aleks sighs and thumps his head back before getting up. He can see where the light reflects off the long slopes of the buildings and their windows as he slips back into his room, pulls on some jeans and then a hoodie over his head. He comes back in after that, clicks his tongue quietly at Mishka with a few soft snaps of his fingers. She raises her head with a jingle of her tags, her ears perking up happily as she realizes it’s walk time. 

“Come on,” he says quietly, and she pads excitedly after him as he grabs her leash off the table by the front door. “Come on, baby, let’s go outside, yeah? Go outside?” 

She pants excitedly, keeps still as best as she can while he clips her leash on, but her whole body is wagging as she stares up at him lovingly. There’s a pack of smokes and his lighter on the table too, along with plastic grocery bags - he stuffs one into his pocket and then slips a cig out of the carton, sticks it between his lips while they make their way down the steps. She’s getting more and more excited about the prospect of walking, darting down the stairs as far as her leash will let her.

“Calm the fuck down,” he mumbles around the cigarette, but doesn’t really mean it. 

The air is cool when he gets outside, the crispness of a fall morning that makes him glad for the hoodie he’d grabbed. It’s sharp in his nose, almost cold in its pleasant sting, and when he breathes out a little there’s just the bare trace of his own fogged breath in front of him. Mishka’s prancing around, jumping excitedly at a few of the people passing by on the street, and he smiles and nods as best as he can. The cig stays unlit, just dangling out of his mouth as Mishka squats and pees on the first patch of grass she can find.

Aleks missed fall. It’s one of his favorite times of year, even in Los Santos where it still stays hotter than most places in the States. At night it drops real low, but right now, in that early morning sunrise, it’s just the right kind of chilly that perks him up despite his long night of no sleep. 

“Go home now?” he asks, and Mishka looks up at him with her ears flat against her head. “You wanna go home, baby?” 

She barks once, tail wagging, and he smiles around the cig. Well, at least when his life’s gone upside down and he’s got no idea which direction he’s going and he hasn’t slept all night, he’ll still have his teddy bear. She hops a little when he squats down and scruffs her up until she barks and he growls playfully right back at her. 

He finally lights the smoke on the stoop to their building while Mishka sniffs everything at her leash’s length, breathes in the nicotine like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. He’s tried to kick the habit as best he can, but it still comes up now and again while he’s stressed and he doesn’t want the whole apartment smelling like smoke. It’ll cling to his hoodie, and Trevor will sniff and make a disgusted sort of face, but - well, Aleks figures he’s got a good enough reason to be agitated right now. 

Aleks stubs the smoke out on the stoop and ruffles up his hair again, squinting into the sun. Fuck.

Trevor’s still asleep on the couch when they get back upstairs, and Aleks puzzles over that for a moment as he lets Mishka off her leash. Celia and Sonic both lift their heads as he slips into Trevor’s bedroom, tugs the duvet off his mattress and drags it back out, throws it on Trevor as gently as he can manage. It still rouses him a little, and Trevor buries his face into the pillow.

“You smell like smoke,” he bitches sleepily, and then immediately falls back asleep.

“Fuckin’ idiot,” Aleks mumbles, albeit fondly, and stretches out both arms, interlocks his fingers at the crown of his own head as he sighs. He’s tired, but not nearly enough to try and head back to sleep, and he watches as Mishka immediately jumps back up onto the couch, jostles it enough that Sonic hisses and Celia goes flying into Aleks’ room with her tail puffed out. It makes him laugh a little bit as Mishka looks around, clearly confused by the sudden lack of friends before she flops down next to Trevor with a huff. 

He leaves them like that, figures Trevor won’t be up for another couple of hours with his shit sleep schedule and it’ll give him some time to work through his shit before they have to go meet up at the warehouse. They’ve got plans to make, and Aleks isn’t really sure where to start. It’s only been a couple of days since they got the place, and it’s cleaned up nicely so far - but it could still use some more furniture.

What he’s most angry about is that Nova was right. The place needed some furniture, or at the very least some decor to fill it all up, but that’s where they hit a snag. An office is certainly one thing, and a house another entirely, but a _warehouse?_ It just has a lot of space to deal with, and Aleks doesn’t actually know where to start now they they’re faced with it. Brett had claimed the office, Asher and Anna had claimed the space _over_ the office, and Lindsay had basically pointed at Brett’s office and said, “that’s mine, too.” 

God. Fucking Nova again. Every time Aleks thinks he’s got him out of his head for a moment, there he is again, right back where he started.

Maybe Aleks pulls a coffee mug out of the cabinet a little more angrily than he means to, thunks it down on their counter and sort of wants a cigarette again. Brett would tell him to get over it, if he knew just how _much_ Aleks dwells on this shit when he doesn’t need to. _Shut the fuck up and concentrate on what’s actually important,_ is probably exactly what he’d say, and Aleks huffs in a little in anger over this imaginary annoying situation.

He peers into the container, and his aggravation goes from imaginary to real.

“You little shit,” he says, quietly at first and then a bit louder. “Goddamnit, Trevor, you fuckin’ bitch.” 

It’s empty, of course, because why _wouldn’t_ it be, and he’s pretty sure that it’s from one of Trevor’s own late nights. He has a bad habit of making coffee and then just leaving the grounds empty because he’s not goddamn paying _attention,_ and Aleks sighs, glares towards the living room where he knows Trevor’s still passed out. 

Well, he wants coffee. He wants coffee bad. And at this point it would make more sense to just buy it premade and go for a walk to calm down a little, so he slips his shoes back on and heads out the door, pulling up his hood as he goes. He almost slams the door shut behind him, just to be petty, but resolves to just “forget” to buy Trevor’s stupid flavored water next time he gets the groceries. 

There’s a brief moment where Aleks considers just taking his car, since the Starbucks he goes to every couple of months is a mile or two walk, but that would require getting it out of the garage, and going through early morning traffic. Aleks isn’t much of a morning person anyway, and he especially doesn’t feel like sitting through any kind of traffic, let alone the daily city commute, so he just kicks a broken brick off their stoop and makes his way down the street. 

There are a few people walking their dogs, some early morning runners, some bikers. Aleks checks his phone for the time and nearly groans as he rounds a corner. He’s definitely not one for going anywhere at quarter after seven in the morning; in fact, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t go _anywhere_ before it’s hit at least ten. It’s a pretty new thing for him, but, well, a lot of the aspects of his life are being thrown for a loop. Might as well get used to it. 

It gives him time to think. They’ve got to get supplies, or at least start considering them. It’s been a while since he’s run a heist, to be fair, but he knows they’ll need communication, they’ll need some extra guns, maybe some extra hands. Brett’s probably got a couple people to call. They have to get into the casino itself, start trying to figure out what they’re going to do. There’s a lot of factors to take in, and Aleks sort of wishes this were just a sort of cut and run heist - just get in and fuck the place up. 

But the money is… definitely too good to pass up. 

He sighs, scoots politely to the side as another runner goes past him. 

The gym might be a good idea too, and he ponders on that. He’s not necessarily out of shape - he’s got a sinus issue that makes him kind of stuffy and nasally sometimes but it’s never _really_ impaired his ability to move fast if need be - but it’s been a while since he’s had to run for his goddamn life, either. Trevor took to the gym a little while ago, but he’s plateaued on that too. Again, maybe Brett’s the one they ought to go to for that. 

It only takes him about a half hour or so to get there, and by the time he is Aleks has fully committed himself to at least sort of going to the gym, because he’s far sweatier than he needs to be and he didn’t even _run._ God. He holds out his arms, trying to be as inconspicuous as he can in the middle of the morning rush to try and air out his pits before he gets to the register. Did he put on deodorant? Oh god. He doesn’t remember.

He’s trying so hard to remember - did he? He didn’t, _fuck_ \- that when he gets to the register, he’s almost forgotten what he usually orders. He hasn’t stuttered in a while, thought he had that mostly under control, but he still fumbles over trying to get the name of the drink out, and when they ask him for his name he just mumbles, “uh, Sam,” and then scurries off to wait.

Aleks resolves, in that moment, to never go anywhere again. Holy fuck. 

The little crowd of people waiting on their drinks consists of two runners, a very frazzled looking guy in a three piece suit, and at least four people who look like their moods will calm considerably when they’ve got their coffee; either way, Aleks stands a little off to the side and does a quick side-swipe of his nose against his shoulder to sniff and see if he smells bad. 

It’s not the worst, and he sighs and tilts his head towards the second floor - it’s a high balcony that wraps around, a quaint little area where he knows there’s more seating, more room to socialize or study or whatever. It looks a little crowded, and his eyes slide over to the staircase next to him, where someone’s coming down with a phone pressed to their ear, drink in the other hand. 

He catches familiar black hair, and he freezes. 

“No, I know, Mom,” Nova says quietly, and Aleks’ head spins. Mom? _Mom_? He’d never really considered that Nova might have - might have _family,_ let alone a _mother._ “She’s on a special diet now. _No,_ she’s - God, yes. Of course I know.I’m making sure Shep doesn’t eat it. Yeah.” 

Aleks keeps himself as still as possible, a deer in the headlights. Maybe if he just doesn’t move, Nova won’t see him, and Aleks won’t have to cause a scene in a Starbucks if Nova says just the right thing to piss him off.

“You’re unbelievable, woman,” Nova continues, sounding fondly exasperated. “I know. Just - I’ll visit soon. Work’s got a bit weird up here.” 

Yeah. No kidding. 

Aleks keeps his eyes straight ahead, stares at all the kooky fonts and pictures on the menu above the registers like if he tries hard enough, he can simply sink into the floor and out of existence. This cannot be happening to him. Of all the coffee shops in the goddamn city, and of all the times Aleks could come, he just _had_ to come at the same time Nova’s here. That’s just… how his life is now, apparently.

Even with concentrating as hard as he can on the menu, he still hears the exact moment that Nova realizes he’s standing there. He’s in the middle of a sentence when he abruptly stops talking, then stutters out an apology to his mom quickly enough that Aleks can feel himself turning red.

 _Just leave,_ he projects as hard as he can, hopes it comes through his body language. His shoulders are tense, his mouth is set thin, and he really, really hopes Nova _gets the fucking hint._

“I gotta go, Ma,” is what Nova says after a moment. “Uh, no, no, something came up. No, fuckin’ - calm down. I’ll call you next week, ‘kay? Same time. Yeah. Love you.” 

Aleks almost groans, but instead keeps his chin up and his eyes firmly on the menu. 

There’s a quiet between the two of them in the otherwise bustling Starbucks.

“So.” Nova’s voice is… irritated? Tense? Aleks can’t tell.“Are you following me now?” 

Aleks clenches his teeth instantly, but swears to himself not to make a scene and instead just slides his eyes over, doesn’t move his head otherwise. He’s surprised by the look on Nova’s face, really - he seems almost mad, his eyebrows drawn together and his mouth as thin as Aleks’ is. He’s studying Aleks like he’s not sure what to make of him, and Aleks finally huffs out an angry little sigh, pulls at his hoodie strings.

“Fuckin’ typical,” he mutters, focusing on the menu again. “The one fuckin’ time I come here in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Nova says, crossing his arms so that he’s holding his drink by the tips of his fingers, dangling under his elbow. “Yeah, no, never seen you here before, so.” 

“Why the fuck would _I_ want to follow _you_?” Aleks says through his teeth. “We ran out of coffee, so I came to get some. Thought this was a free country.” 

“Ohhh. That why you came here? For the Starbucks?” 

Aleks glares at him fully this time, actually turns his head so he can get the malice out. 

“There’s fuckin’ Starbucks in Russia, asshole,” he says, incredulous. “There’s one in Moskva -” He pauses, corrects himself. “In _Moscow_ , where I lived.” 

The anger’s real enough that it slips out unbidden; it’s only been five years since he left Russia, after all, and even the C in _Moscow_ comes out thicker than he means it to. He’s aware that Nova was really only making a joke rather then actually asking him, but god. Just being around him gets Aleks angry, gets his heart rate going faster than any half-hour walk could. Nova stares at him, sizing him up, and Aleks is about to snap at him when Nova abruptly points towards the counter, still holding his drink in that hand.

“You Sam?” he asks, and his tone is different now. “That barista looks like he’s about to fuckin’ shoot you if you don’t go and get your drink.” 

Aleks huffs angrily and almost denies it, but that _is_ his fake name of the day so he turns on his heel, accepts the gift with a short apology towards, indeed, a very irritated looking barista. Aleks almost isn’t even feeling the drink anymore, but he’s already paid for it and he’s still thirsty from the walk, so he just grabs a straw and mashes the paper off on the counter next to the garbage can. 

To his intense dismay, Nova’s followed him, and he looks curiously at the drink as Aleks holds the straw between his teeth to tug off the rest of the wrapper.

“The fuck even _is_ that,” he asks, head tilted. “Why you always getting the weirdest fuckin’ drinks, man?” 

“It’s just an iced macchiato, holy shit,” Aleks replies instantly, stabbing his straw into the top and taking an angry sip. God, it’s delicious. Fuck. He’s so mad. He continues around the mouthful of coffee, cheeks bulging a bit as he struggles to keep it contained. “With, like, caramel or whatever.”

“Yeah… yeah, okay, fuck off with your pretentious drinks.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to fuckin’ be that’s not around me?” Aleks asks irritably, taking far too big a sip on top of the other one.

“You’re the one who showed up at _my_ Starbucks,” Nova points out, watching Aleks swallow with a bit of difficulty. “You started this whole thing.” 

Aleks is almost mad about that, too. But Nova’s right; he’s probably the one who comes here more. That, at least, means he can _leave._ Aleks tosses his balled up wrapper into the trash and tries to shoulder his way out, but a hand wraps around his upper arm, stops him. He has to take a breath, shoulders hunched as he turns around, but when he locks eyes there’s something different in Nova’s eyes - maybe something softer. Aleks stares back at him, suddenly unsure. His anger’s abated a little, leaving in its wake that uncertainty as he holds his gaze with Nova’s.

“Okay,” Nova says, when they’ve been staring at each other for a couple long, tense seconds. “Look. I’ll man up. Sorry I thought you were stalking me, or something. Okay?” 

Aleks narrows his eyes at him. 

“Is this the part where I, like, apologize too or...?” He trails off slowly, nose wrinkling. 

“Usually, yeah.”

“For _what._ ”

Nova rolls his eyes, and Aleks hates him just a little bit more.

“For, I dunno, being rude? Whatever.” Nova sighs, and runs his hand through his hair. It’s down, instead of in a bun like the last few times Aleks has seen him, and it looks soft as ever. Aleks hates that it looks soft, and works his damn best to ignore that part while he takes another sip of his drink and Nova looks him up and down before continuing. “Look. I wanna talk. Can we talk?”

“No,” Aleks says immediately around his straw, and Nova rolls his eyes again.

“Are you just being childish at this point because you know it’s annoying?” he asks, and Aleks sneers at him a little. “Or are you just doing it, like, in place of a personality?” 

“Okay,” Aleks says, and makes to leave. “I’m out.” 

“It was a joke,” Nova groans, lifting his head to the ceiling. “It was a fucking joke. Please stop taking things so seriously, for _once,_ I am begging you.” 

And now - now Aleks is getting frustrated. It’s a constant dance now, a back and forth just trying to figure out what it is that Nova _wants_. First he’s angry at him, then he’s ambivalent, then he’s just outright apathetic, and now he’s trying to make _jokes_? What the fuck is his problem, anyway? It’s like he doesn’t know which emotion he wants to settle on, and it makes Aleks angry enough that he tries to leave again - but Nova’s hand lands on his arm again, and Aleks looks down at it before raising his eyes, hoping his expression is dangerous enough to let Nova know he doesn’t want to be touched. 

Nova hesitates, just long enough that Aleks almost jerks his arm away himself, but then - then Nova’s voice is soft.

“I want to talk, Immortal,” he says, and there’s… there’s honesty there. A genuineness that Aleks hasn’t seen from him in years. “Just - I don’t know. I think maybe we should talk.” 

“Maybe I don’t _want_ to talk to you,” Aleks answers slowly, and Nova sighs out a little laugh. 

“Well, you made that clear, but we’re here anyhow,” he points out, and Aleks begrudgingly admits to himself that he’s right. “So what’s the harm in it? Besides,” and he sighs dramatically, raising his eyes to the ceiling like he’s praying, “we’re partners in this, whether we want to be or not. And this shit ain’t gonna work if we don’t at least fuckin’ discuss it. We owe it to everyone else in this crew to _try_ and get along.” 

That’s true enough. As much as Aleks would love to continue with his all-encompassing hate and bitterness and spite, not working in tandem with Nova could very well put them all in a lot more danger. There needs to be communication and understanding in crews like this, especially if they’re going to be doing something as big as robbing the Grand Central Casino. And these are Aleks’ friends, not Nova’s - it’s a little shameful, actually, that Nova would be the one to make that point first. Aleks is the one who should want to keep them safe.

A lot of the pent-up rage Aleks had been feeling in that moment dissipates a little. It’s not that he’s forgiven Nova, or that he’s forgotten what happened between them four years ago. Oh, no. Aleks very much still holds all of that close in his chest, keeps it there to remind himself of what happens when you put too much trust in people, and he’s sure he’ll keep all that there until whenever his likely untimely death comes along. Aleks holds on to things - it’s something you do when you have almost nothing, and that extends to the feelings and emotions that have kept him afloat all these years. 

Nova hurt him in a way that still leaves a sting. But standing there in a crowded Starbucks in Los Santos, at seven thirty in the morning, Aleks can let himself deflate a little bit, can juggle his options and decide on the best one. The sting is still there, but part of him is sick to death of letting it fester, rather than finally letting it heal. He’s twenty-five now; he’s not some nineteen year old holed up on a cargo ship with nothing to his name, a name he still hasn’t fully told anyone since that ship first made port.

It’s time to grow up, or at least for now, set it all aside.

They both stare at each other as the shop bustles around them, the bell above the door tinkling and the sound of people’s quiet conversations somehow roaring in Aleks’ ears, and he watches as Nova holds out his hand with his expression steady. Aleks’ eyes flick down then, and he stares at it. 

“At least for now,” Nova says, voicing what Aleks had been thinking, and Aleks looks up at him. 

“A truce,” he says quietly, and there’s an old, bitter accusation there.

Nova’s expression flickers, just for a second, before he nods and hums the affirmative. Aleks stares at him some more, takes in his tired eyes, his long hair, and thinks maybe he could see the handsome young man he’d spent that first night with in the softness of his scruffy cheeks, the dark brown of his eyes. 

Their hands clap a little as Aleks takes his hand, and they shake.

“Fine,” he says, and sniffs once. “But I still fuckin’ hate you.” 

He’s expecting for Nova to say something just as snappy back, but he just smiles tiredly.

“I know,” he says simply, and then wrinkles his nose. “God, your hand is fucking sweaty.” 

Aleks immediately goes red in the face.

“It’s condescension!” he snaps, snatching his hand away. “From the fucking drink!” 

There’s the briefest pause as Nova stares at him, and then he watches as Nova _transforms,_ his face breaking out into a huge grin before he starts laughing loudly, one of those great big belly laughs that wrinkles his eyes and shows off all his teeth. It makes his tanned cheeks go pink from how hard he’s laughing, and Aleks finds himself frozen solid, stomach in knots watching Nova just bust out hysterically in front of him - it’s almost addictive, and certainly almost contagious, but he forces his face into a pissed off kind of expression as Nova hiccups.

“It’s _condensation,_ ” he wheezes, one arm wrapped around his waist, the other one still clutching his drink. “Not fuckin’ - not _condescension_. Oh my god. Are you real?” 

“Oh, yeah?” Aleks snaps, immediately soured. “Sorry, which one of us is bilingual again? Hello?” 

“You’re right, you’re right,” Nova manages, waving a hand at him, but he doesn’t sound very sincere about it. “Totally easy to get those words mixed up. Sorry. Sorry.” 

“Yeah, fuck you and your sorry,” Aleks mutters, and takes a huge sip of his drink to avoid the fact that he’s embarrassed as hell, and that there’s still a rolling pit of tension in his stomach from the sight of Nova’s laughter. It ought to make him angrier, that Nova’s laughing at him so heartily for something as stupid as Aleks mixing up a word - again - but instead it just makes him feel… nostalgic, maybe? If he absolutely had to choose, then Aleks supposes _nostalgic_ would be it. He’s nostalgic for a time long past, for that one night in his life when things had felt like they clicked into place.

“Come on,” Nova says, wiping at his eye with a sleeve. “Let’s go upstairs.” 

“You make it so hard for me to like you,” Aleks says, still pretty annoyed, but he follows Nova up the stairs anyway, trudging along and still sipping at his drink like it’s personally offended him. The upstairs feels a little cramped at first, but there are windows along the walls and dark wood tables and plush chairs that make it a good place to just relax. There’s one table off in the corner that’s empty and the pair of them make a beeline for it. 

“So,” Nova says, pulling out a chair and sitting; Aleks immediately folds himself up on the other side of the table, relaxes the soft part of his knees against the edge and tucks his drink against his chest. It’s a way to close himself off, make a barrier between the two of them - normally he sits sprawled out and uncaring, but right now he just wants to keep his walls up. Nova looks thoughtfully at Aleks’ posture for a moment before seemingly deciding to ignore it. “Why Sam?” 

“How do you know that’s not my real name?” Aleks asks around his straw, blatantly lying.

Nova raises a tired eyebrow.

“Is it?”

Aleks sighs hard enough into his straw that it blows bubbles into his drink.

“It’s just a random name,” he finally admits under his breath, but still loud enough that Nova can hear him. Nova’s still watching him with that curious, pensive look in his eyes. “I dunno. Just came up with it on the spot.” 

Nova chuckles a little, leans forward so that he can rest his cheek on one hand. It’s his left hand, and when his sleeve slides down a little Aleks can see the black beaded bracelet and a hair tie around his wrist, the red and yellow and black of his tattoos poking out past the hem, but the name there stays covered. Thinking on it now, Aleks can’t really ever remember a time where he _hasn’t_ seen Nova in black - which is fine, given that it’s Aleks’ color of choice for shirts too. The other hand reaches up and pushes a lot of his curls in one direction so that it folds towards the right side of his face, a curly black waterfall. He’s still unnecessarily handsome for how much Aleks wants to hate him - enough that it’s a little frustrating, even. 

“Yeah, well, I get that,” Nova says, and reaches out with that hand to turn his cup in Aleks’ direction. The name printed says _Norman,_ and Aleks almost snorts. “Weird how much people, you know, don’t do the shit we do.” 

“Names are dangerous,” Aleks says simply, shrugging. 

Nova hums.

“Yeah, I guess.” He yawns a little, pulls his drink back towards him. It’s some kind of cold drink too - Aleks figures it must be iced coffee or something simple. They sit there for a long moment, neither of them speaking. Instead they both just sip at their drinks, let the world bustle around them as the morning starts to pick up. There are people going to work, or people coming in after their long overnight shift. Aleks can see people in scrubs, and police officers already dolled up in their fancy uniforms. He’s starting to feel the all-nighter now, his eyelids getting a little heavy despite the caffeine running through his veins. Maybe he should’ve gotten espresso. 

“I wanted to apologize,” Nova says quite suddenly, and Aleks’ eyes snap over to him, startled. “For, uh. For how I’ve been acting the last couple of days, I guess.” 

That’s… unexpected, and definitely out of character, but Nova turns to look at him with a shockingly sincere expression. It drives Aleks’ heart directly into his throat, and he’s aware that his mouth drops open a little bit as he stares but he’s having a hard time comprehending the situation at the moment.

“It’s just…” Nova hesitates. “Those are all your friends, not mine. Kinda makes me feel like an outsider, you know? So I probably... reacted worse than I shoulda. Made a bad impression.”

Aleks bites back the accusation on his tongue - _you told me to get the crew, you said you didn’t care -_ and instead settles for making his expression carefully neutral. Had Nova been sitting on this since they got the warehouse? It’d only been a couple of days tops, but… well, Aleks had been dwelling. Stands to reason that Nova would have something to dwell on, too. 

Out of nowhere, Nova chuckles softly. Aleks blinks at him.

“You remember that time we hijacked that Camaro,” he says, sounding fondly distant, “and when Koots asked what the hell we thought we were doing, you said you thought that fuckin’ car would be a good way to get people to think we were the shit? Make a good first impression, you said.” 

Aleks blinks at him again, lips parting a little in shock. 

“...yeah,” he says quietly, shifts his legs a little. “I only wanted it ‘cause it looked like the one from Transformers.” As the memory surfaces, he almost grins. “You broke the panel in half trying to hotwire it.” 

“Hey, hey, at least I _tried_ to hotwire it,” Nova replies instantly, but there’s a smile growing on his face. “You just kept complaining that I was taking too long.”

“I was keeping watch while _your_ dumb ass tried to figure out the fucking wires!” Aleks can feel his own smile really forming now. It had been before… it had been _before_. It had been when things were good, when every day was a new and exciting adventure that he got to spend with Nova, the two of them the “dynamic duo” that Shay called them once. They had worked together. They’d been partners in crime, for however brief a period - Aleks had spend so long trying to bury the past that he’d almost forgotten how good it’d been. “You finally got the fuckin’ thing working, like, right when the cops were coming. Fuckin’ useless.”

“I’m not the car guy!” Nova insists, grinning. His voice still gets higher when he’s emotional, Aleks notices, even all these years later. “I’ve never been the car guy, I’m the shoot things guy, and you’re the pretty guy. That’s why the fuckin’ carjacking didn’t work.” 

That gets Aleks to laugh, gets him to lean forward with it hard enough that his shoes thunk off the floor. He can’t contain it, can’t stop his eyes from squeezing closed. It’s true that that day hadn’t exactly gone well, and Aleks clearly remembers the two of them being forced to leave the Camaro underneath a bridge and running for their fucking lives - Aleks had to scruff up his hair as best he could to look charming and speak Russian at anyone who tried to ask them questions so they could make it back to the Hub safely. 

When he manages to pull himself back together, the expression on Nova’s face is softer than it was before. He’s got both hands on his drink, and Aleks catches the way it seems like he’s just watching him before he abruptly clears his throat and looks down at his drink again, eyebrows coming together. It’s odd, and very out of character, enough so that it makes Aleks feel suddenly self-conscious. He hasn’t eaten anything yet today, so there’s nothing stuck in his teeth. Maybe his laugh was weird?

“Yeah,” Nova says quietly, and then the look is gone. Instead he just raises his coffee in a weird half-toast. “Yeah, well. Here’s hoping that doesn’t have to happen again.” 

Aleks is thoughtful for a moment.

“Well,” he finally says, “that would be Linzbot’s job. The carjacking. Not ours.” 

Nova looks relieved for the change of subject somehow - it flashes briefly in his eyes and he leans forward a little, coffee lowered back down to the table. Aleks finds himself looking at one curl specifically, the way it looks like if he took the end of it and pulled, it would sproing back into place. It’s distracting.

“Oh, yeah?” Nova says, sounding interested. “Where’d you even find her?” 

And that - that sets off something Aleks hasn’t felt in a long time: guilt. He feels the weight of that day so suddenly and so powerfully that the shame rises in his face and he has to look away. Aleks wants to pretend that he had been right that day but - but he remembers running back into the Hub after Lindsey dropped him off, and Trevor near tears hugging him too tightly before Aleks had to take him by the wrist and drag him back out into the sunlight. They ran, and they ran, and only now, two years later, is Aleks really taking in the magnitude of what he did. 

Aleks had left the Creatures that day, and he doesn’t regret it. But now he does regret _how_ he did it… maybe just a little.

“A few years ago, uh, on a run,” he lies, and stares at the ice in his drink before swallowing hard. Before all this, he hadn’t seen Nova since that day, never really knew the toll it took on him. Aleks had blocked his number, had run far, had tried his damn best to never look back. But he’s not stupid enough to think that Nova didn’t feel anything about what happened. He had, after all, been there when Nova first answered the phone. “I, uh… I guess I should apologize, too.”

“Oh?” Nova looks genuinely surprised by that. “That’s not like you.” 

“Can you fuck off for, like, a second?” Aleks snaps immediately, but reels himself in. He catches Nova’s smirk and decides to ignore it. “Look, just - sorry. Okay?” 

There’s another pause before Nova raises his eyebrows a little. 

“Don’t you think,” he says after what looks like careful contemplation, “that you should, I don’t know… elaborate?” 

“No,” Aleks says childishly, sealing his lips around his straw again. 

“Like pulling teeth,” Nova sighs, but there’s still something fond in his tone as he sits back. He regards Aleks thoughtfully for a long moment, and must decide it’s good enough. “Well, okay. Apology accepted, I guess. Even though I don’t know what it’s _for._ ” 

“Yeah, well.” 

“I always love chatting with you, you’re so articulate,” Nova says cheerfully. Before Aleks can respond to that with an equally sharp retort, though, Nova sighs and scratches at his hair. It makes all his curls bounce a little, and Aleks stares at them, and then Nova, as he continues. “We should talk about the whole... thing eventually. Our job. Maybe not here, though.” 

“That’s why we have the warehouse,” Aleks mumbles peevishly, and to his surprise Nova laughs. It’s such a cheerful noise, even if it’s muted by the sounds around them, but Aleks’ breath actually catches in his throat. He can feel himself going still.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Nova says, and stretches out enough that he groans a little with it. “But that place is bleak as fuck, it still needs furniture. Still needs a shitty couch.” 

“You and that fuckin’ couch.” 

“Excuse me, Immortal, _every_ living space needs a shitty couch.” Nova grins at him, and it almost takes away the bags under his eyes. It’s the same magic he worked hanging out of a car, when it seemed like happiness was all it took to make him look younger again. He looks, for just one moment, like the same boy that Aleks had let himself fall in love with so many years ago, that had made Aleks feel like he had found a place in the world right there in Nova’s heart. His breath catches again. “That’s what makes it home.” 

Aleks shoves away from the table. 

“I need to go,” he says in a hurry, suddenly overwhelmed. His eyes are burning. “Uh, yeah, I’ll - I’ll see you at the warehouse, I gotta - the dog needs to be let out. Bye.” 

He doesn’t stay to see what Nova’s response to that is. Aleks’ fight or flight instinct has kicked into overdrive, panic starting to settle in as he pushes his chair in and bolts down the stairs, leaving his drink behind on the table. He can’t tell if Nova calls after him, or if he’s even trying to chase him, but all Aleks knows is that he needs to get outside into the air, needs to get out of this crowded Starbucks and into the sunlight where he can try to breathe. He manages not to crash into anyone, but as soon as he shoves at the glass doors and makes it outside he immediately feels less suffocated.

In the back of his mind he’s aware that this is probably an anxiety attack, with the way his chest is constricting and how much his eyes are burning, the way he can’t seem to get his heart to slow down, but he can’t do more than get outside and just lean against the wall. His breath’s coming in too fast, his fingers splayed out against the red bricks as he takes one deep gulp of air after another and wills himself to calm down.

He doesn’t know what happened. One second he was fine, then Nova _smiled_ at him, and now suddenly he’s a fucking mess. 

“Fuck,” he says, startling someone walking by. “Fuck. Fuck!” 

Nova still has this goddamn control over him. He still makes Aleks feel like he’s drowning with no way to surface, no strength to break the water. They’d almost worked something out, almost made this into something amicable but then he had gone and _smiled_ at him, had made Aleks feel so at home in the midst of all his bitterness and spite that Aleks had, for just one second, forgotten about the betrayal from so many years ago. He had forgotten how hard it is to be around Nova, to know how close Aleks came to the one thing he’d always wanted and then had it cruelly ripped out from underneath him. 

Nova’s like the tide before a tsunami - all of those awful feelings are pulled away, so far away that they can’t be seen, and then it all crashes back in so hard that it wipes out everything in its path. 

Aleks’ eyes are still burning and he rubs at them with his sleeve before hurrying down the road. He counts his steps and keeps them in time with every other breath he takes, trying to will the panic away by sheer determination alone. He doesn’t want to risk Nova coming out and trying to find him, too terrified of whatever conversation _that_ would lead to, so he keeps looking over his shoulder. But no one’s following him and he takes that as a good sign. Part of him’s pissed - he spent over four dollars on that goddamn drink - but the rest of him is still trying to decide if he should start running instead.

He manages to keep himself in check, only goes at a fast strut that borders on a jog. He can’t let Nova in like that again, he can’t - can’t let him win like that. Aleks has only opened himself up to one person after he left the Creatures, and even then Trevor doesn’t even know Aleks’ real name. He has to keep his privacy, because it’s what keeps him safe; Aleks can be professional, and he can handle this, he _can._ He just has to keep Nova at arm’s length, just has to make sure that he doesn’t smile at Aleks like that again. 

He just has to keep himself detached.

When he gets home, Trevor’s awake again, scrolling through his phone with his cheek still plastered to the pillow. Sonic’s curled up against his chest, her yellow eyes blinking slowly as she looks over at Aleks, and they paint a much more comfortable scene than what Aleks has been through already this morning. Sonic’s always been clingy, since the first time Trevor picked her up and she licked his nose, but she’s always seemed best at simply sitting with him and comforting Trevor with her presence alone. 

But Trevor still looks exhausted, even with the sleep he’s gotten; his eyes still half-closed and his glasses still on the coffee table, and there’s a weight in the air when Aleks shrugs off his hoodie that neither of them are going to address. 

Trevor’s eyes flick up when he walks in, but he must see something in Aleks’ expression, because he asks quietly, “you okay, man?” 

Aleks scrubs his hands down his face, wishes he could get Nova’s smile out of his mind.

“Fine,” he says, doesn’t mean it. “I’m fine, dude, I just… we gotta start planning this heist.” 

Trevor makes a little humming noise.

“That’s what you’re upset about?” he asks, without really asking, and somehow that makes Aleks angrier. 

“Yeah,” he says, runs his hands through his hair. “Yeah, that’s all. Come on. We gotta go shopping for shit for the warehouse, we need like - tables and curtains and whatever.” It’s a stupid excuse, and he can tell that Trevor can see right through it, but one hard glare from Aleks stops any arguments from arising. “I’m gonna go shower and shit. Hundar said he’d meet us at the warehouse around, like, noon or something. He wants to talk about, fuck, a bank? I don’t know.” Aleks has to physically force himself to stop messing with his hair, instead lets his arms drop. “Let’s just go and look for whatever we need. I need to get out of the house.”

“Okay,” Trevor says quietly, and Sonic yawns from where she’s nestled up against his chest.

Aleks stalks into the bathroom before he can embarrass himself any further, or worse, snap at Trevor for shit that’s out of his control. He furiously rips off his t-shirt, ruffling up his hair so that it sticks up on end, and then glares at himself in the mirror. Covered in tattoos, hair all over the place, and so much sudden anger in his eyes that Aleks has to look away again.

Fuck.

He takes an unnecessarily hot shower, until his skin is red as a lobster and the entire place is fogged up. He’s mad, but it’s abated some, and when he gets out of the shower again he has swipe a little at the steam in the air to find his clothes. He finally digs his phone out of his pocket when he hears it buzz a few times, and checks the screen. Maybe he’s expecting something from Trevor, or even something from Brett, but instead there’s just a picture of his half-finished drink and then a text underneath it.

_Four dollars for this? Really? :/_

For one split second he almost laughs, but instead he just tosses his phone down and starts angrily tousling his hair dry with his towel. Stupid fucking Nova. Aleks recognizes the olive branch for what it is, but stubbornly refuses to take it until he absolutely has to. 

They make their way out of the house about an hour later, when Aleks has calmed himself down enough to be presentable. Aleks knows he looks a little like death warmed over from his lack of sleep and Trevor’s covering up his dark circles with a pair of sunglasses. They both look like they could use a full day of rest, but Aleks has already resigned himself to this life, and to the exhaustion, and he just puts his own sunglasses on and speeds down the road as soon as they’re out of the garage.

“You wanna talk about it?” Trevor says after a few minutes, and Aleks grunts.

“No.” 

“M’kay,” Trevor sighs, though it sounds more tired than exasperated, and Aleks looks over at him, watches the wind whip through his hair. Neither of them really say anything after that, and Aleks pulls into the first Salvation Army store he can find. Trevor immediately heads off towards what looks like an entire rack of tacky clothes from at least before either of them were born, and Aleks rolls his eyes as he makes his way towards the furniture. They need a couple of desks, a table, maybe, some chairs.

He’s peering around when a couch catches his eye.

It costs $175, which is a huge steal in the long run. He stares at it, his head tilted a bit to the side as he regards it thoughtfully. It’s not that they had gone to a fucking Ashley Furniture or whatever - Brett had in fact been so insistent that they _not_ go anywhere expensive, given that they’re always on the lam and can’t really use credit, that it had been hard to disobey - so for him to find a shitty old couch in a shitty thrift shop on the shitty side of town, well. It could be worse, he supposes.

Except for the simple fact that he _hates_ it. 

“That thing’s fucking hideous,” Trevor says immediately, coming up behind him and tilting his head the same way as Aleks’. He’s got what looks like at least three new tourist shirts folded up in his arms, his sunglasses pushing all his thick hair out of his eyes. “Ew, dude. Why does it look like that? Who would fucking buy that?”

“Nova would,” Aleks says before he can stop himself, crossing his arms. Trevor gives him a little aside glance, but doesn’t say anything about it. “He loves stupid tacky shit like that.” 

“That’s the worst pattern ever,” Trevor opposes immediately, his nose wrinkled. Aleks can’t help but laugh a little at his sheer disgust. “Seriously, what the fuck. Who made that? We’re not buying that, are we?” 

Aleks sighs, rubs at the nape of his neck with his hand. A couch isn’t exactly at the top of their list of priorities, and that’s not even why they had come here in the first place. The dumb thing had just caught his eye because of how _loud_ it is, how utterly obscene, and now Aleks can’t stop staring at it. It just looks so hideous, so completely awful, and yet somehow it feels like _home._

“Yeah,” he says, and pulls out his phone to see if Lindsey can bring a truck. “We’re buying it.”

Trevor scoffs at him, but walks off again to presumably look for something else. Aleks takes a quick picture to send to Lindsey, and then after a brief bit of a pause, he sends it to Nova, too. It’s a bad idea, probably, and there’s a good part of Aleks’ brain that’s screaming with anxiety - especially given how he reacted earlier in the day - but he still does it before he can stop himself. 

_Better than 175 for a fucking couch,_ is what he types out, and shoves his phone into his back pocket before he can think any harder on it. They wander around for a while when Lindsey gives the affirmative, settling on shitty clothes, a few desks that they could use, some umbrellas to keep out the sun from the big windows near the roof. 

By the time he gets an answer, Lindsey’s already arrived with both a pickup truck of questionable origins and a very sour-looking Brett riding in the bed, and they paint a remarkably weird picture. 

“I brought him for both his muscles and his cheery disposition,” Lindsey says happily, patting Brett’s shoulder while he glares at her without any heat to it. Aleks watches Trevor perk up just a bit before he looks down at his screen again, sees the reply waiting for him. 

_Now THAT’S what i’m talking about. Cow print!!!!!_

Despite everything, Aleks grins. 


End file.
